Laura Graves

Laura Graves (born July 22, 1987) is an American dressage rider. She represented the United States at the 2016 Summer Olympics where she won a bronze medal in the team dressage competition. After winning double silver medals at the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon, NC, Laura became the first American dressage rider to be ranked No. 1 in FEI World rankings, aboard her longtime partner Verdades.

Dressage career Growing up in Vermont, Graves rode her first pony at an early age when a family friend boarded two ponies at the Graves' farm. Laura and her sisters got attached to the ponies, which persuaded their parents to trade a washing machine and a tumble-dryer in order to keep them. At the age of 15, Laura (along with her mother) bought a foal named Verdades from the Netherlands, a horse that eventually became her Olympic partner. Verdades, however, proved difficult at his early age. In 2009, Graves suffered a broken back after he threw her from the saddle. Following the setbacks, she decided to focus on her cosmetology studies and sell the horse.

After briefly working in Boston, Graves decided to move to Florida and continued pursuing her career as a dressage rider after not being able to sell Verdades because of his opinionated spirit.

Graves and Verdades started competing at the international Grand Prix level in 2014. At the American Dressage Championships, held in Gladstone, New Jersey, they placed 2nd overall and qualified directly for the 2014 World Equestrian Games. In the build-up towards the World Equestrian Games, Graves and Verdades competed at the CHIO Aachen 5* event, placing 10th in the freestyle final. At the World Games, held in Normandy, France, they finished 5th in the team, 5th in the special, and 5th in the freestyle competitions.

Graves opened the 2015 dressage season with FEI World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she finished 4th, narrowly missing a podium finish. Later that year, she competed at the Pan American Games, which were held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She won a gold medal in the team and a silver medal in the individual dressage competition, behind her teammate Steffen Peters.

In 2016, Graves competed at her first Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She won a bronze medal in the team competition and earned 4th position individually.

Following year, Graves and Verdades qualified to compete at the 2017 World Cup Finals in Omaha. She finished in a runner-up position, behind Isabell Werth, and thus won her first individual medal.

In 2018, Graves successfully defended her World Cup Finals silver medal at the competition held in Paris, France. Later that year, she became the first American dressage rider to be ranked No. 1 in FEI World rankings after the World Equestrian Games in Tryon, NC. The Gelders Horse is a heavier warmblood type originally bred for both versatility and style: these horses needed the strength and stamina to work farms but also enough refinement and action to be stylish carriage horses. Fessenden says it’s not at all unusual for Gelders to influence the breeding of modern Dutch Warmbloods, but it is somewhat exceptional to have this much Harness Horse influence so close in the pedigree of an Olympic dressage horse."

Personal life Laura Graves grew up in Vermont on a family farm. She is the daughter of Ronald and Patricia Graves and has two sisters, Eliza and Lindsey. Graves' parents purchased Verdades for her when her first horse, Sunny, was retired from competition.

At just 11 years old, she buried a clay model of the Olympic rings inside her fifth-grade time capsule in hopes that she'd make it to the sports world's biggest stage one day. Laura graduated from Harwood Union High School (Duxbury, Vt.) in 2004 and went on to cosmetology school.