Robert Dover

Robert Dover was a dressage rider who competed for the US at six consecutive Olympics (1984-2004), winning four bronze medals in team dressage at four consecutive Games (1992-2004). During his career he won over 100 Grand Prix events, competed seven times in the World Cup Final, and won a bronze in team dressage at the 1994 World Championships. Dover also won five US individual titles, before retiring from competition in 2009. In 1987 he won the German Aachen Grand Prix freestyle event, defeating Reiner Klimke, and making him the first American to win that event since 1960.

In 1996 Dover founded the Equestrian Aid Foundation to financially assist members of the equestrian community who have suffered a catastrophic accident, injury or illness. He spent many years on the US Equestrian Federation Dressage Committee, and eight years on the US Olympic Committee’s Athlete Advisory Council. In 2008 Dover was inducted into the United States Dressage Federation Hall of Fame.

Dover was one of the first gay athletes to come out publicly at the Olympics, which he did at a press briefing at Seoul in 1988. He later wrote a book about his life which addressed this, The Gates to Brilliance: How a Gay, Jewish, Middle-Class Kid Who Loved Horses Found Success (Trafalgar Square Books, 2021).