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A legend in the sport of dressage, Robert Dover competed in his fifth straight Olympics in Sydney, the most ever for an American dressage rider. At the last two Olympic Games, he led the U.S. Olympic Dressage Team to bronze medals. Individually, his best outcome was in 1988, when he finished 13th. The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles were his international debut. Dover rode Romantico to place 17th in the individual event. In 1996, it appeared he wouldn't have and Olympic-caliber horse to ride in Atlanta until Anne Gribbons passed Metallic on to him six months before the Games. Dover rode Metallic to a 25th place finish and led the U.S. team to a bronze.
Dover rode Ranier, a 9-year-old Oldenburg, at the 2000 Olympics. He was united with Ranier, then named Rangoon IV, in 1999. Dover and Ranier trained in Germany before returning to the U.S. circuit, where success immediately followed. Though Ranier was green, particularly for a dressage horse, judges seem to respond very well to the athletic, steel-gray gelding. Dover had planned to ride the aptly named Everest, a massive 18-hand horse, in the Games. But in an effort to rest his back in between days of the trials, he asked friend and teammate Guenter Seidel to give Everest a workout. This is against the rules; Everest, who stood seventh at the trials, was disqualified.
Robert, on Ranier, was a member of the bronze medal winning Dressage team in Sydney.
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