Less than seven months before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, U.S. dressage rider Laura Graves has retired her 2016 Rio bronze medal horse Verdades.
Graves made the announcement via Instagram, saying, “I’ve always promised that I would do my best to listen and make the right choice for him when this time came. It became clear in recent weeks that he was not going to be able to return to his usual top form in 2020.”
Verdades, an 18-year-old KWPN gelding also known as “Diddy,” has been with Graves since he was 6 months old. Horses can live well into their 30s, and while there is no maximum age for a horse competing in the Olympics, 18 is generally considered senior, or close to it.
Graves brought Diddy up through the ranks herself, which is uncommon at the Olympic level.
“This horse not only achieved every goal we ever set, but he fulfilled dreams that I never knew I had,” she wrote on Instagram. “Not always the easiest, it was his generous heart and incredible sense of loyalty that made him one of a kind.”
The duo took the U.S. dressage world by storm at the 2014 dressage national championships and made their World Equestrian Games debut later that year in Normandy. They finished fifth in the Grand Prix Freestyle and went on to take team gold and individual silver at the 2015 Pan Am Games.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Graves and Diddy helped push the U.S. to team bronze, and they finished just out of the individual medals in fourth place.
Since their Cinderella Olympics, the pair have been a staple on the U.S. Dressage Team, picking up double silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon, N.C., behind dominant German equestrian Isabell Werth. They peaked at No. 1 in the world dressage rankings in October of 2018.
The following spring, they were runners up to Werth yet again at the 2019 FEI World Cup Dressage Final in Gothenburg in what would become their last competition together.
Team USA earned a spot in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with their silver medal at the last World Equestrian Games, but the U.S. will have to ride without one of their most successful pairs. Since Verdades is the only horse Graves has ever competed internationally, Graves’ Olympic future is unknown.
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