Laura Kraut

With one team gold medal already in the bag, US showjumper Laura Kraut is focused on Tokyo to add to her tally, despite the unconventional build-up to the Games. Nancy Jaffer meets her

- Nancy Jaffer

IN the midst of a crazy, virus-plagued year, Laura Kraut is working toward making the US showjumping team for her fifth Olympics.

“It’s the strangest thing. We’re used to being such planners and organisers and now we can’t plan anything,” says Laura, referring to Covid-19 and EHV-1.

The 55-year-old rider’s situation was complicated by a fall in February, when she broke her collarbone.

“It’s been a bummer,” says Laura, who was out of the action from midway through the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida, leaving her 41st in the Longines rankings.

That was on top of an accident last year at a Dutch show, where she broke her nose and her horse stepped on her Charles Owen helmet. Happily, it protected her head and has been seen in advertisements with the horrific gash it took for its wearer. That time, she only missed three weeks of competition; Laura is someone who perseveres.

THIS all-around horsewoman was never pampered growing up, when riding was only 10% of what she did with horses.

“We groomed them, iced their legs, cleaned stalls, rode them bareback with no halter or bridle. We’d take them swimming. As I got older, I drove the truck and trailer. We learnt every aspect of it, which made you appreciate the horses, not just the competition. And that’s important,” she says. “In our world, you’re lucky if you have a 1% win ratio.”

Of course, she’s done better than that. But her big break didn’t come until a 40.6°C day in 1990 at a show in Tennessee, when Geoff Sutton decided it was too hot for him to compete on his thoroughbred jumper, Simba Run, and offered the ride to Laura.