Sarah Whitmore

Sarah Whitmore started three-day eventing in 1958, and the first of many good horses she enjoyed success on was her chestnut gelding Foxdor. It was after a bad fall at “The Coffin” at the 1965 Badminton that Whitmore turned her attention to dressage. Embarrassingly, the fall on Foxdor came just moments after Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip arrived at the notorious obstacle to watch proceedings.

Whitmore’s first great dressage partner was Junker, a Swedish-bred gelding acquired for her by Baron Von Blixen-Finicke, Jr. as a 7-year-old. In 1975 the pair won the Prix St Georges international dressage competition at Fontainebleau, and also enjoyed success in Aachen. Whtmore and Junker then went to the 1976 Olympics, but the long journey to Canada took its toll on the horse, and they could only finish a disappointing 22nd. However, Whitmore ended the Olympic year by winning the British Grand Prix champion’s title for the one and only time. She competed in the 1978 and 1982 World Dressage Championship on Dutchman.

Born into a Kent farming family, Whitmore spent her entire life on the family farm at Edenbridge, part of which she turned into a dressage training centre. She became a respected trainer, and one of her students was the 1992 Olympian Laura Fry.