The U.S. Para Dressage Team is bringing home team and individual medals from Japan, making it the country’s most successful Olympic or Paralympic discipline in the Tokyo Games.
Roxanne Trunnell and her partner Dolton earned two gold medals—in the individual and freestyle events—to become the first individual gold medalist for the U.S. in Olympic or Paralympic competition since David O’Connor and Custom Made won the eventing competition in Sydney in 2000.
Trunnell and teammates Rebecca Hart with El Corona Texel and Kate Shoemaker with Solitaer 40 also won team bronze, marking the first Paralympic team medal for the U.S. and the first time a non-European country has earned a team medal in para-dressage’s 25-year history as a Paralympic sport.
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Along the way in Tokyo, Trunnell and Dolton, a 9-year-old Hanoverian gelding (Danone I—Lady, Londonderry) owned by Karin Flint and Flintwoode Farms LLC, set a Paralympic record by scoring 86.92 percent with their “Forrest Gump”-themed freestyle. The same freestyle scored even higher—89.52 percent—at the pair’s last competition, the U.S. Para Dressage observation trials held in June as part of the Perrigo Tryon Summer Dressage CPEDI3*(North Carolina), setting a world record.
Watch Trunnell’s gold-medal freestyle from the Tokyo Paralympic Games, posted by NBC Sports:
