Featured
Fiona Howard and her horse Diamond Dunes scored a 76.93% in their Paralympic debut, beating out eight other finalists. They will compete in two more para dressage events this week.
Fiona Howard’s rocket-fueled rise to the top of the para dressage world continued on Tuesday in Paris, where she kicked off her Paralympic debut with a dominant championship ride.
The 2021 Northeastern University graduate won a gold medal in the Grade II individual para dressage event at Versailles on Tuesday morning, beating out eight other finalists including top competitors from Hungary, Germany and Japan.
Howard and her horse, the 11-year-old chestnut Hanoverian gelding Diamond Dunes, scored a 76.931% for their ride, beating out silver medalist Katrine Kristensen of Denmark by nearly three percentage points. Georgia Wilson from Great Britain earned Bronze.
Howard credited Diamond Dunes for his reliable calm during the most pressure-filled ride of their partnership thus far. The two have been paired together since March.
“I just went in there and was like ‘I trust you’ and he was like, ‘don’t worry, I’ve got you,” she said in a press interview. “He gave me confidence throughout the whole ride. On the final center line, I was so proud of him.”
Howard and Dunes came into the Paralympics ranked No. 1 in the world for her grade, and the pressure to deliver was immense. During the test, commentators praised the pair’s “feeling of controlled power” (during the ride, Dunes was a bundle of energy, eager to break into a canter at one point) and Howard’s ability to make the ride look easy.
“This was a relatively dominant display,” the announcer on Peacock’s streaming broadcast said.
Howard has two more chances to medal this week. On Friday, she and her three fellow members of Team USA will compete in the team event. On Saturday, she will cap off her Games in the freestyle competition, where she and Diamond Dunes will perform in a routine set to music from the film score of “Avatar.”
Howard credited her team members, all Paralympic veterans, for helping her navigate the ins and outs of the competition.
“It’s helped me so much,” she said. “All of my teammates have been to at least one Paralympic games. They’ve been my biggest supporters through all of this, and I’m so thankful for them.”
In dressage, horse and rider pairs complete prescribed sets of movements that increase in difficulty at the higher levels. Para riders are afforded accommodations based on their disabilities, and compete in one of five grades according to their physical limitations: 1 is the most limited, 5 the least.
Howard, who suffers from a neurological disorder called dystonia that limits her control of her limbs, competes at Grade 2. For accommodation, her hands and legs are strapped to her stirrups, and can use her voice and light dressage whips to help signal Diamond Dunes.
Howard was an accomplished youth equestrian in her native England, but her condition, combined with a series of serious stomach and cardiac issues, confined her to the hospital through most of her teens. While completing a psychology degree at Northeastern, she gradually lost most of her ability to walk and spent nearly 800 days at Boston Children’s Hospital for treatment. In addition to her limited mobility, she now relies on a feeding tube to eat. After being at the barn almost every day for most of her life, Howard didn’t get on a horse for nearly three years.
But Northeastern was also where she started riding again, taking lessons as a member of the university’s equestrian team to re-learn how to work atop a horse in a different way. She started competing in para dressage in 2021 and moved to Wellington, Florida to train with Shoemaker, a Paralympic bronze medalist. Howard now divides her time between Florida and Germany, where she trains with Nicole Wego at Hof Kasselman, a stable that serves elite para and able bodied dressage athletes alike.
Shortly after Howard’s gold medal ride, her teammate Rebecca Hart won gold in the Grade III division on her horse Floratina.
Talking with Northeastern Global News in May, Howard recounted how riding again — and finding a perfect fit for her natural gifts as an equestrian in para dressage — has helped her come to terms with the physical limitations she’s faced.
“I was such an athletic child, and having my mobility taken away was really difficult,” she said. “When I ride horses, it’s where I can move. I can borrow their legs.”