Charlotte Dujardin tries to keep a tight rein on her emotions. She can't afford not to, competing in a sport in which, as she says, her horse picks up 'every mood', 'every emotion'.
Yet, when she won a bronze for her individual dressage performance in Tokyo on her bouncy little chestnut Gio to secure her place in history as one of the most decorated British female Olympian of all time, she wept.
'It was so surreal,' she says. 'When I got the score I was like, 'oh my God, he's medalled. He's done it.' I couldn't quite believe it. It was just amazing — so amazing. I'm not an emotional person. I don't really cry, but I literally cried like — I can't even tell you.'
She flashes the million-watt smile that endeared her to all of us at the 2012 London Olympics where she emerged as a poster girl for equestrian sports after winning two gold medals.
Charlotte Dujardin tries to keep a tight rein on her emotions. She can't afford not to, competing in a sport in which, as she says, her horse picks up 'every mood', 'every emotion'
So much so that the Queen, herself an avid horsewoman, invited her to Buckingham Palace where she told those gathered for afternoon tea, 'now, you've never seen anyone ride quite as well as this young lady.' Charlotte, who, believe me, can chat away like there's no tomorrow, was 'totally speechless'.
Her 2012 triumph was followed with a silver medal in the team dressage in Rio's 2016 Olympics, a gold in the Grand Prix Freestyle and a marriage proposal from her boyfriend of ten years, Dean Golding, who stuck a homemade sign to his shirt asking, 'Can we get married now?'
They were actually already engaged, she says, this was his way of saying 'hurry up'. Only, the wedding never happened. Dean left her a year ago, totally breaking her heart.
'I actually did my Grand Prix (the individual dressage) in Toyko a year to the day after we split up. A year ago, I was so distraught. It was one of the worst days I'd ever had emotionally, physically. I didn't know what to do with my life.
'Yet that morning in Tokyo I just thought 'look at me now, I'm right up here at an Olympics. I've just won a team bronze. How much happier can you be?'
'To go from being down there,' she touches the ground. 'To up here.' Now she raises her arm high above her head. 'That's why life is so amazing.'
Charlotte returned from Tokyo last week and is still all over the place. 'Buzzing,' she says.
Her horse Gio (she calls him Pumpkin) is a young gelding of just ten years, which in dressage terms is an absolute beginner.
When she won a bronze for her individual dressage performance in Tokyo on her bouncy little chestnut Gio to secure her place in history as one of the most decorated British female Olympian of all time, she wept
He came in as a last-minute replacement for the more experienced Mount St John, who, after an injury, was deemed not fit to go to Tokyo.
Charlotte had just three weeks to prepare her little chestnut. Their success is nothing short of a miracle — or as Olympic commentators said, 'a fairy tale'.
'When a reporter said, 'Do you know you're the most decorated?' I'm like, 'oh my God'.' Again, that huge smile splits her face in two.
She was soon to be matched by cyclist Laura Kenny — both now have six medals apiece.
What the world didn't know, however, was that back home, Charlotte's mother Jane was very ill in hospital. So ill, in fact, the family had kept it from her.
She'd developed sepsis following a hernia operation, and everyone thought she was recovering, before she took a dramatic turn for the worse and was readmitted for emergency surgery — while Charlotte was still competing.
'I spoke to my sister (Emma Jane) after I had won the bronze medal and that's when she told me. There were tears and laughter as her sister told her that their mother had point blank refused to have the operation until after the dressage team final on Tuesday.
As soon as Charlotte returned from Tokyo she went straight to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital where her mother was being treated — and is still recovering now.
'Just to see her, to see how proud she was of me was so emotional. She just kept saying how incredibly proud she was. Then my dad had bought all the newspapers. He's like, 'Charlotte, I can't believe it, you're on every front page!' I sat there with a box of tissues.'
She is pictured above with her parents receiving her CBE in 2017. Her parents bought her and her sister Emma Jane Shetland ponies which was how she spent her early childhood, racing with her sister across 'any field we could find'
Charlotte's parents had supported her fiercely throughout her career. The Dujardins — Charlotte has a brother and sister — are a deeply loving family but there was precious little money. Her mother Jane and father Ian, who raised their children in Enfield, worked their socks off to support their daughter's passion for horses.
Her father had a packaging company that made a living for the family but they never had the sort of wealth needed for a sport in which buying and maintaining a top-level dressage horse can run to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Charlotte's mother encouraged her daughter's passion for horses from when she was barely out of nappies, walking her on a rein round a paddock near their home.
Her parents bought her and her sister Emma Jane Shetland ponies which was how she spent her early childhood, racing with her sister across 'any field we could find, falling off a lot and getting back on.' Show ponies followed and, although Emma Jane was three years older, it was Charlotte — who is dyslexic and far preferred horses to school — who turned out to be the more talented.
She was 19 when her mother received an inheritance after her own mother died from cancer. She used the money to buy her daughter her first dressage horse.
'That money would have made a big difference for Mum and Dad but my mum gave it up to buy my first dressage horse. My nan would have loved me to have him and without that money we'd never have been able to afford him.'
Charlotte's love and worry for her mum is writ large across her face. We're sitting in the legendary dressage trainer and fellow Olympian Carl Heston's yard in Newent, Gloucestershire where Charlotte keeps her horses.
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