Carol Lavell

Carol Lavell was a dressage rider who helped the United States win a bronze medal in team dressage at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Riding Gifted Lavell also placed sixth individually in Barcelona. Lavell and Gifted competed at the 1990 World Championships, and won a gold medal at the 1989 North American Dressage Championships in Canada. They later become the first Americans ever to win the Hermes International Dressage Show Grand Prix in England. Lavell also won a silver medal at the 1987 Pan American Games, and she was an eight-time national champion, winning them all between 1985-88. Lavell purchased Gifted, a bay Hanoverian gelding who stood at 17.3 hands, when he was a four-year-old. In discussing the horse with teammate Michael Poulin, he called the horse “gifted” and that became his name.

Lavell was given the Whitney Stone Cup in 1993 by the US Equestrian Team. In 1992 she received multiple honors, including being named the USOPC Female Equestrian Athlete of the Year, and the American Horse Shows Association (later the US Equestrian Federation) named her Equestrian of the Year. She was also chosen as Dressage and Overall Horseman of the Year by The Chronicl of the Horse.

Lavell later taught dressage, especially to young students. In 2009 she established the Carol Lavell Advanced Dressage Prize through The Dressage Foundation in honor of her mother and father, which awarded yearly grants to young riders.