Laura Kraut: Why Cedric is the horse of a lifetime

Laura Kraut has been riding horses since the age of three.

The American boasts an impressive CV, which includes team jumping gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and a third-place finish in the 2013 Longines Global Champions Tour.

Now 51, Kraut has a wealth of experience and there are few riders better placed to talk about horses than her.

She has undoubtedly ridden many a prized steed in her career, but which would be her horse of a lifetime if she had to choose one?

“Well, it was pretty easy to choose,” the Rome Gladiators rider tells CNN Equestrian. “I would say it’s Cedric, the horse I rode at the Olympics in Beijing.

“He’s just been retired this year, aged 19, and he was just the most special horse I think I’ll ever have.”

From the outside, Kraut’s time with Cedric looked like plain sailing, but it took three years before the pair really began to click.

“I had him when he was seven,” she recalls. “He was very quirky, he was afraid of people riding him, he was afraid of many things and yet, when you were on the ground with him, he was like a puppy dog.

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“You could bring him in the house with you! He was really my best friend but, at the same time, very, very difficult to ride. So when he finally figured it out and got there, aged 10, it just made it that much more special.”

Finding another horse as talented as Cedric, Kraut admits, will be a hard task but she is keen to cherish the many successful moments they spent together.

“I think, you know, you always hope you’re going to find another one but I think, to have a horse like Cedric, that was everything all in one, it’s going to be difficult.

“I don’t think he’ll ever be replaced. I think it would be nice to have another one that is as talented but he’ll always hold a special place in my heart.”