The United States Olympic Team will have a familiar face in Rio. San Diego’s Steffen Peters has earned a spot on Team America for the fourth time.
The United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) revealed its four-member Olympic Dressage Team on Monday. The team consists of:
Allison Brock
Laura Graves
Kasey Perry-Glass
Steffen Peters
Brock, Graves and Perry-Glass will me making their first Olympics appearance so they will be looking to Peters for advice. He competed in the 1996, 2008, and 2012 Games and was an alternate in 2004.
In case you're wondering, Dressage is a competition based on training of the horse to develop its natural athletic ability and willingness to work with the rider.
Peters is a native of Germany. He came to America in the summer of 1984 to work at the San Diego-area barn of Laurie Falvo and fell so in love with the area he moved to America’s Finest City the very next year. In 1992 Steffen became a U.S. citizen.
He won a bronze medal in the team competition at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games aboard Udon. In 2008 in Beijing he rode Ravel to a fourth-place finish, narrowly missing his first individual medal. His current mount, Legolas 92, will be with him in Rio. Those two won team and individual gold medals at the 2015 Pan American Games.
Peters is an eight-time USEF Grand Prix Dressage National Champion and three times was named USEF Equestrian of the Year. He and his wife, Shannon, operate Arroyo Del Mar, a training facility in San Diego.
