LOOKING through the list of Dublin Grand Prix winners, Kathy Kusner and Untouchable’s names appear after the US pair recorded a rare back-to-back Dublin Grand Prix double. In the same year - 1965 - as their second win, Laura Kraut was born near Atlanta, the 1996 Olympics host city.
Fitting for a rider who went on to compete at no less than four Olympic Games, 10 World Cup finals, three World Equestrian Games, a Pan-American Games and, last year, became the winner of the same Dublin Grand Prix as her compatriot, Kusner.
The 2025 €500,000 Rolex Grand Prix turned out to be a Dublin cliffhanger; Laura and the Belgian-bred Bisquetta won with the only clear round, ahead of Rodrigo Pessoa (Major Tom) and home-crowd hero, Shane Sweetnam (James Kann Cruz).
Much to the delight of the Dublin crowd, Laura took an extra solo lap of honour with Bisquetta, happily signing autographs and souvenir baseball caps afterwards.
What you see is what you get with Laura Kraut. She’s just touched down in La Baule, where she’s competing at the Nations Cup show with Bisquetta, Baloutinue and rising star Kaylee, when we catch up for this interview.
Interview? It turns out to be a chat with Laura, whose upbeat ‘Golden Retriever Energy’ is ever-present, whether it’s at a Dublin press conference or signing more autographs for fans at the 2018 Washington International Horse Show, the same year Team USA won WEG gold at Tryon.
Laura was on that winning team with Zeremonie; Confu was her choice for Dublin the previous year when she, Lauren Hough, Lillie Keenan and Beezie Madden won the Aga Khan Nations Cup.
“We used to go to Anabel’s [nightclub in Burlington Hotel]; we had great times there!” Laura drolly remarked, after Lillie’s plans to celebrate their win in Coppers [Copper Face Jacks] nightclub were revealed at the 2017 press conference.
Laura Kraut and Confu jumping for USA in the Aga Khan Nations Cup in 2018 \ ES Photography
Fast forward to last year’s event, when Laura spoke of her excitement about winning one of her bucket-list classes, alongside Aachen and Rome. “I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to win this today,” she said on the final day of the 2025 Dublin Horse Show, adding that Bisquetta, whose owner Margaret Duprey was present, would become more “of a princess after today. There’ll be no talking to her!”
Almost a year later, she vividly recalls walking the Grand Prix course with partner Nick Skelton, a five-time Dublin Grand Prix winner, not to mention his serendipitous individual gold medal at the Rio Olympics.
IMPOSSIBLE TASK
“When I walked the course, I knew how difficult it was. Alan [Wade] is one of the best course builders ever and there wasn’t one fence that was ‘free’.
“Every fence was strategically placed to be knocked down. I remember when I finished walking, I looked at Nick and I said, ‘How am I gonna do this?’ It wasn’t unjumpable, but it was just so technical, so careful and so difficult.
“So my biggest memory was that I thought, I don’t know how I’m going to do this. Then, as I’m watching round after round after round of nobody being able to do it, my biggest hope when I got on to warm-up was, ‘God, I hope I can go with only one down and then I can try in the jump off’.
“As I was walking up to the ring, I was like, ‘Just keep it to one down’. However, Nick kept saying, ‘This is perfect for you; you’re going to be clear’. He had a lot of confidence.
“I, on the other hand, did not, so when I rode down the last line and I hadn’t had a fence down yet, I just thought, ‘Please, please God, let her do this, because she’s not going to make a mistake’ and I didn’t want to force her to have one.”
Cutting to scenes of Nick, watching, waiting and then cheering as Laura and Bisquetta came down that line clear to clinch this most-wanted win is another indelible Dublin memory.
“He looked at me and he said, ‘Finally!’ No, he was thrilled. I think, for him, Dublin is such a special place, as it is to me. He has so much history there and for Nick, it was almost as good as him winning, so he was really, really thrilled.”
Britain's Nick Skelton and Laura Kraut of the USA walk the course prior to the Grand Prix at the Dublin Horse Show 2019 \ Lorraine O'Sullivan
Cedric at Dublin
Nick’s five Dublin Grand Prix winners (equalling David Broome’s record) are Everest Apollo (1985, 1988) and two Irish-breds: Phoenix Park (1990, 1991) and Hopes Are High (1998). Now Laura and Bisquetta join the roll of honour.
The couple are frequently sighted ringside at Dublin. “We always enjoy walking around and watching what’s going on. Having spent a good deal of time in England, I’ve gotten to see a lot of the English and Irish versions of the hunter classes, which are quite different from the way we do it in America. But I thoroughly enjoy watch-ing, and I mean, it’s all about people loving their horses.”
Hunter classes are where Laura and her sister Mary Elizabeth, another essential team member, started off back in Georgia.
“My mom [Carol] started us off, I was riding from two years on and then I rode pony hunters, not pony jumpers, for the people at Hunter Hill. I think I was 14 or 15 when I first got on a horse, I wanted to stay on ponies. I love them!”
Perhaps this affection steered her towards her horse of a lifetime: Cedric, the ‘little horse that could’. Standing just 158cm, the Chambertin 3 grey was spotted as a youngster by Laura at a show in Belgium and was bought from Eric van der Vleuten.
Like Bisquetta, he was later owned by Cherry Knoll Farm’s Margaret Duprey by the time the Holsteiner gelding had his official retirement party at Wellington nine years ago.
Incidentally, his field companion in retirement was Lauren Hough’s Quick Study, the Dublin Grand Prix winner in 2011. This pair were Cedric and Laura’s team-mates two days earlier when the US team finished fifth in the Aga Khan Nations Cup, won that year by Great Britain. And who’s on the winning team? Nick again, this time with Carlo 273.
A numerous Grand Prix winner, Cedric’s shining hour was a Hong Kong Olympics team gold win, a result Laura nominates as her career highlight.
“I have to think that stands out as a highlight because, at the time, he was still pretty unproven. We went there with not great expectations! And then to have him jump the final clear and to do what he did... I think of all the wins, that one still probably stands out as one of the most special.”
Laura Kraut celebrates after winning the Rolex Grand Prix of Ireland at the 2025 Dublin Horse Show \ INPHO/Tom Maher
With age comes wisdom
Laura has quite an eye for a horse as Big Star (Quick Star), Nick’s gold medal horse at Rio, was also spotted by her. “It’s something that I enjoy doing. I’ve been very, very fortunate to have the small talent that I have for scouting horses, but I do enjoy it. You know, you can find good ones, but then you have to produce them and then that’s a whole different level!”
As well as her self-deprecating good humour, another hallmark is her patience in producing young horses, often giving them that extra three or six months to join the dots when she believes in their potential.
“That’s something that you also learn with age, isn’t it? I think when you’re young, you’re ambitious, you want to get there fast, you want to make it happen. I’m positive I made many mistakes along the way in that respect.
“It’s easy to say now to give it more time, but those are the things you learn and I did. I’ve learned it many times the hard way.”
Both Cedric, the horse that she spotted that very potential in, and Laura have been inducted into the US Show Jumping Hall of Fame at the Kentucky Horse Park, joining a list of hallowed names.
It was an incredible honour for four-time Olympian Laura, who got her first passport when she was called up for the US team reserve slot at Barcelona (1992) with the ex-racehorse Simba Run.
Her first actual Olympic team appearance was in Sydney (2000), where she rode Liberty, followed by Cedric’s team gold eight years later and then two more team caps at Tokyo and Paris, both with Baloutinue.
One team gold, two team silver from the Hong Kong, Tokyo and Paris Games, plus a team gold medal at the 2023 Pan-Am Games in Chile, courtesy of Dorado 212 - quite a record for the hard-working pony hunter girl from Georgia.
Interestingly, both Baloutinue and Bisquetta feature Baloubet du Rouet, Rodrigo Pessoa’s Sydney gold medallist in their pedigrees.
Bisquetta, bred by Claire McCarthy-Winters, has earned just shy of €1.2 million in prize money to date, while at the time of writing, Laura (10th) is currently the highest-earning lady rider in this year’s Hippomundo rankings on €1.3 million. Her prize money total since 2015 stands at a remarkable €7.8 million.
Laura Kraut competing on Bisquetta, in the Minerva Stakes during the Dublin Horse Show at the RDS in 2025 \ Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile
Dublin diary date
Lofty heights and, undoubtedly, it was the right career choice made by Laura to forego her own college place after one semester. What would her advice be to a similarly horse-mad youngster: go to college first or follow the dream?
“You know, I think it’s case-specific. For me, I knew what I wanted to do. Going to school [university], I was on a student loan. It was going to end up putting me in debt and so I just thought I don’t want to start out that way.
“But… if you have the ability to be able to do both, I think four years is a very short amount of time in the whole scheme of things. I’m sure there’s experiences that I missed out on by not going to college, thankfully I don’t know about them! I think it’s case-specific: if you can do both, great, because it’s just to experience different parts of life.
“For me, I knew what I was doing and I just wanted to get going,” added the 15th woman to win the Dublin Grand Prix, joining a hallowed group that also includes Irish winners: Iris Kellett (1948. Rusty), Diana Connolly-Carew (1968. Barrymore) and Jessica Kürten (2008, Castleforbes Libertina).
And, of course, the American dual-winner trailblazer, Kathy Kusner.
Laura and Nick now mostly divide their time between Florida and their post-Brexit base in the Netherlands. It’s a whirlwind life, helped hugely by Mary Elizabeth’s meticulous planning and La Baule is the latest stop in their 2026 diary, after Aachen and Rome.
Every year, the show jumping calendar features either a championship or the Olympic Games. This year’s target is the FEI World Championships in Aachen (August 11th-23rd), immediately after Dublin (August 5th-9th).
Twenty years ago, at the 2006 WEG in Aachen, Laura and Miss Independent were on the US team that won a team silver medal. Another result that contributes to her record as the most-decorated equestrian in US history, with over 90 Nations Cup appearances.
Her fans, though, can rest assured she’ll put in an appearance in Dublin this year.
“Oh, I’m good, don’t worry, I’m definitely coming back! We won’t miss Dublin. It’ll depend on how things shake out with the World Equestrian Games, but I’ll be there and hopefully with a horse that is a strong competitor.
“I’m a huge fan myself of Dublin. It’s on our calendar and, when I eventually retire, I can see Nick and I coming over, just for the ‘craic’, as you call it!”
When you’re coming to Dublin for the craic, atmosphere and experience of Horse Show Week, you’re practically Irish anyhow. Not to mention that Laura, one of Connolly’s Red Mills ambassadors, gets that chance to relive where it all started for her in the pony rings.
Laura Kraut, along with Nick Skelton’s own storied history, just fits right in at Dublin.
This article is taken from The Irish Field’s Dublin Horse Show Magazine 2026. Order your copy HERE
The victorious US team of Lillie Keenan, Laura Kraut, Lauren Hough and Beezie Madden after their 2017 Nations Cup win \ Susan Finnerty