Dressage

Richard Davison

Richard Davison is a four-time Olympic dressage rider whose influence on British dressage extends well beyond his personal results — as performance manager, coach, selector and advocate he has shaped every phase of the British production pipeline that produced the gold-medal London 2012 team.

Four Olympic Games

Davison represented Team GBR at the Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Olympic Games — a run that made him one of Britain’s most-capped dressage riders of the modern era. His partnerships with Askari, Ballaseyr Royale and Hiscox Karioka delivered consistent Grand Prix scores at a time when British dressage was still a medal-light discipline.

Championship Record

  • Olympic Games: Four appearances (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
  • European Championships: Individual silver; multiple team medals
  • National Titles: British National Champion

Performance manager and coach

Davison served as Team GBR’s dressage performance manager during the transitional years before London 2012 — the period in which the foundations of Britain’s subsequent gold-medal dominance were laid. He has since coached Olympic medallists on both sides of the Atlantic, held FEI roles in dressage selection and contributed regularly to broadcast coverage of major championships.

He is a widely published author on dressage training, co-authored works on high-performance sport psychology and continues to run clinics at his yard. His sons Joe and Tom Davison have both ridden internationally.

Legacy

The strongest testament to Davison’s work is the generation of British dressage riders who came through his performance era — including Carl Hester, Laura Tomlinson, Charlotte Dujardin and the para pathway that produced Lee Pearson and Natasha Baker — and went on to collect nine Olympic and Paralympic gold medals across three Games cycles.

Horses associated with Richard Davison

  • Askari — Atlanta 1996 campaigner
  • Ballaseyr Royale — Sydney 2000 Grand Prix
  • Hiscox Karioka — Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Grand Prix

See the World Class Programme for the pathway Davison helped build.