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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citizenship | U.S. | ||||||||||||||
| Born | August 25, 1932 New York, New York | ||||||||||||||
| Died | August 18, 2013 (aged 80) New York, New York | ||||||||||||||
| Education | Cornell, NYU | ||||||||||||||
| Height | 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) | ||||||||||||||
| Weight | 62 kg (137 lb) | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Edith Louise Master (August 25, 1932 – August 18, 2013) was a Jewish-American equestrian who specialized in dressage. [1] [2] [3] [4]
She was born in New York, New York, on August 25, 1932, daughter of Dr. Arthur M. Master and Hilda Altschul Master. [1] [4] She studied at Cornell and New York University. [4]
Master competed for the United States in both individual and team dressage, finishing 23rd aboard her mount Heloise in individual in 1968 in the Mexico City Olympics and 19th aboard Dahlwitz in individual in the 1972 Munich Olympics, which placed her well out of medal contention.
At the 1976 Olympics, her third, she won a bronze medal in team dressage, aboard her horse Dahlwitz. Dahlwitz is a city, and common surname in Germany. Moving up from previous Olympic competition with the aid of experience and coaching, she placed 14th in individual dressage in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. With her 1976 Olympic bronze in team dressage at the age of 43, she became the second-oldest US female to win an Olympic medal in any sport. [1] [4] The 1976 American Team at Montreal was coached by Colonel Bengt Ljungquist of Sweden, former Cavalry officer, Dressage competitor and Olympic fencing athlete, who helped American dressage break a 28-year Olympic medal drought that year. [5]
The favorites for the team dressage competition in Montreal in 1976 were Germany, Switzerland, and the Soviet Union to medal, but the US managed to clinch the bronze ahead of the USSR for their first dressage medal since the 1948 Games. Edith may have benefited considerably in competing against the dominant German dressage team by receiving training from Heinz Lammers, one of the greatest German dressage coaches of the era and by the skills of her Olympic dressage coach, Colonel Bengt Ljunquist. [1] [4] [6] [7] [5]
The fundamental purpose of dressage is to develop, through standardized progressive training methods, a horse's natural athletic ability and willingness to perform, thereby maximizing its potential as a riding horse. [1] [4] The United States had very little history of Olympic equestrian medals prior to 1976. Dressage, which can be performed in the Olympics as an individual event or as part of a team, is used to teach horses to be athletes. They learn to carry the weight of the riders, and to carry themselves as well in a more graceful, and balanced manner. Dressage means "training", and it teaches a horse to be safer to ride, more responsive to the rider, and more obedient. [8]
Dressage consists of a series of 39 exercises demonstrating how well the rider communicates with the horse. Included exercises are the walk, trot, and canter, as well as having the horse walk backwards, and weave through a pre-determined serpentine course. Four judges score the maneuvers on a ten-point scale. Edith and her two teammates at Montreal, Hilda Gurney and Dorothy Morkis received a combined score of 4,647 points. [7]
While living in Germany for a number of years, she studied dressage under the exceptional trainer Heinz Lammers. Lammers taught in the riding schools in Saerbeck and Greven, Germany, before going independent in 1967. He had a training stable in Olfen and was a heavily sought after coach. In addition to Edith Master, his students included Olympians Eva Maria Pracht, and Pia Laus. Lammers was considered one of the defining personalities in Westphalian (Westphalia region, Germany) equestrian sport, which he helped shape and supervise as state trainer for dressage for almost a quarter of a century. Receiving around 100 medals as a trainer, the Equestrian Association of Westphalia honored Lammers' work with the Golden Plaque of Merit in 2002. He died on February 8, 1922. [6]
Successful Dressage riders must master the art of getting their horse to move at a relaxed pace, at an even rhythm, on the right track, and yet remain alert with a vertical profile to the ground and a properly bent head. [9] Edith collected exotic birds, raised German shepherds, and grew orchids as hobbies. [4]
Edith died on August 18, 2013, at the age of 80. [10] Funeral arrangements were made by Zion Memorial Chapel in Rye, New York. [11]
Theodora Elisabeth Gerarda "Anky" van Grunsven is a Dutch dressage champion who is the only rider to record three successive Olympic wins in the same event. Along with her Olympic successes, she has won numerous medals at the World Equestrian Games (WEG), and is the only rider to have competed at every WEG since they began in 1990. Between 1990 and 2006, she competed at the Games in dressage, but in 2010 she was named as part of the Dutch reining team, marking a major change in discipline.
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Equestrian sports were first included in the Olympic Games in the Summer Olympics of 1900 in Paris. They were again included in 1912, and have been included in every subsequent edition of the Games. Currently, the Olympic equestrian disciplines are dressage, eventing, and show jumping. In each discipline, both individual and team medals are awarded. Since the XV Olympiad in Helsinki in 1952, women and men compete on equal terms.
Eva Maria "Evi" Pracht was a Canadian equestrian who competed in dressage in the 1984 Summer Olympics and was part of the bronze-medallist team at the 1988 Summer Olympics.
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Nicole Uphoff is a German equestrian who competes in the sport of dressage. She won four gold medals in individual and team competition at the 1988 and 1992 Summer Olympics. Riding her star horse, Rembrandt, Uphoff also won numerous other international competitions, including the World Equestrian Games and the European Dressage Championships.
Ingrid Klimke is a German eventing rider. She appeared at five Olympics from 2000 to 2016. With her horse Abraxxas, she won two gold medals in team eventing at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, she won a team silver with Hale-Bob.
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Rembrandt was a dark bay Westphalian gelding ridden for Germany by Nicole Uphoff in dressage competitions. Together, the pair won four Olympic gold medals, three gold and one silver World Equestrian Games medals, and numerous other international championships. Although known as a sensitive horse prone to spookiness, Rembrandt's elegance and expression in the ring allowed him to become one of the top horses in the sport of dressage.
Dorothy Sarkis Morkis is an American equestrian who won a bronze medal for America in team dressage aboard her white gelding Monaco in the 1976 Montreal Olympics where she had the highest individual dressage score of any American Dressage Team competitor. In one of her mount Monaco's best showings, she won a gold medal in team and a bronze medal in individual dressage in the 1975 Mexico City Pan Am games. She continued to compete in high level dressage intermittently through the 1980s and 1990s and later taught dressage to students.
Hilda Carolyn Gurney is an American equestrian. She was born in Los Angeles. She won a bronze medal in team dressage at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, aboard her chestnut gelding Keen, who she purchased, named, and trained herself. She participated at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, again aboard Keen, where the US dressage team placed sixth. After her competitive career, she trained and bred dressage horses and acted as a competition judge.
Charlotte Susan Jane Dujardin is a British dressage rider, equestrian, and writer. A multiple World and Olympic champion, Dujardin has been described as the dominant dressage rider of her era. She held the complete set of available individual elite dressage titles at one point: the individual Olympic freestyle, World freestyle and Grand Prix Special, World Cup individual dressage and European freestyle, and Grand Prix Special titles. Dujardin was the first rider to hold this complete set of titles at the same time.
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