Cindy Neale-Ishoy

Cindy Neale was originally a swimmer, but took up equestrianism as a teenager. She first represented Canada on the international stage at the 1971 Pan American Games where, in the absence of the United States, she won a gold medal in the team dressage event alongside Christilot Hanson-Boylen and Zoltan Sztehlo while placing fourth individually. She then attended her first edition of the Olympic Games the following year, where she finished 26th in the individual dressage and 6th among 10 nations in the team event (with Hanson-Boylen and Lorraine Stubbs).

She was selected for the 1976 edition, but did not compete, and was then slated to attend the Games in 1980 until Canada boycotted them. Although she was offered an opportunity for the Soviets to pay her way to Moscow, she turned them down and therefore had to wait until 1988 to get another chance to participate in the Olympics. By then she was Cindy Ishoy and was coming off a second-place individual finish at that year’s World Cup, having placed behind Christine Stückelberger of Switzerland. Riding her horse Dynasty, Ishoy won bronze in the team dressage, alongside Eva-Maria Pracht, Ashley Nicoll-Holzer, and Gina Smith, and finished in fourth in the individual event, sixteen points shy of Stückelberger and the closest any Canadian has come to an individual Olympic dressage medal.

The following year, Dynasty died of colic and, although she had many more successes over the course of her career, Neale was never able to relive her Olympic glory. At the 1992 Summer Olympics she was 10th in the team event and 34th individually while, in 2004, she placed 9th with the Canadian team and joint-31st individually. In 2010 she was named Dressage Canada’s Owner of the Year. Her husband Neil Ishoy was also an equestrian who represetned Canada at the 1980 Alternative Olympics in France and the 1982 World Championships. Together they ran a dressage business in Ontario until Neil’s death in 2015.