Who is Charlotte Dujardin’s fiancé Dean Golding? Inside Olympian athlete couple’s rollercoaster relationship

Six-time Olympic medallist Charlotte Dujardin was given a sensational ban from equestrian sports today, just days before the Paris Olympics, after video footage emerged of her whipping a horse ‘like an elephant in a circus’.

The disturbing clip has led to allegations that the Team GB dressage queen whipped the animal more than 24 times.

Following the scandal, Dujardin’s fiancé Dean Wyatt-Golding remained secretive about it, telling reporters the allegations “came out of nowhere.”

Golding told the couple at home: ‘I can say nothing other than what Charlotte has stated.

“We can only wait and see what happens.”

But who is the embattled Olympian’s partner and how have the two gotten through their 17-year relationship of highs and lows?

How did the couple get together?

Dujardin met Golding from Durban, South Africa, in 2007 and the two got engaged a year later, a fact that may come as a surprise to those who witnessed his public proposal nine years later, at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The 45-year-old man, whose father owned a pub in a nearby Cotswolds village, was introduced to the rider by legendary dressage coach and Olympic competitor Carl Hester.

Like Dujardin, he was ‘very sporty’ and a gifted swimmer, who wholeheartedly supported her in her career.

However, they split five years later, after the 2012 London Games, when the dressage star quickly became famous.

He told her he was leaving her the night she was to turn on the Christmas lights in Newent. Charlotte ‘put on a mask’ and tried to be cheerful, but as soon as they got home Dean packed his bags and left.

She admits she was ‘probably not easy to get along with’ – she was very busy at the time, as Carl suggested she sell her beloved horse, Valegro – better known as Blueberry – with which she had won the Olympic Games.

She told the Ny Breaking: ‘Dean found the media side of things really difficult, and that I couldn’t see myself as much because I was abroad a lot competing.

He said, “The media knows more about you than I do.”

“He told me he needed to be alone to clear his head. That was the hardest part. Dean was my first love. I felt like I had everything and then it was all taken away. I lost my relationship. I was going to lose my horse — my whole life was turned upside down.

“If I could have given my medals back and put everything back to the way it was, I would have. But when I wasn’t with him, I wasn’t in a good position.”

Did the couple get back together?

After this difficult period, the couple reunited with a comeback that culminated in Golding’s iconic declaration of love in Brazil, wearing a shirt that read “Can We Get Married?” as he watched Dujardin win his third gold medal.

The couple were engaged before the Games, but Dujardin said she had “always wanted” him to be at the event and this was his way of letting him know they “had to hurry up.”

But in July 2020, Golding left again as the Tokyo Games were postponed for 12 months due to the Covid pandemic.

Dujardin said: ‘He made that decision – that call – and I had to go through with it, so he went and I went to Cornwall. Some friends there invited me for the weekend. We went swimming with the horses, galloping on Bude Beach, anything to take my mind off Dean.

“I kept thinking why? Why wasn’t I good enough? Why wasn’t it working? To be honest, Dean is 42, so there’s six years between us. I think we just outgrew each other. I was just going places that he didn’t even think I could go and he had a hard time with that.

“When he left I was terrified. I remember thinking, ‘Oh God, I’m all alone in the house.’ It’s a lonely place to be and I’m not going to say it was easy. It was a real test of my strength and where I was as a person.

‘I realized I had to find who I was. I don’t think I found it because I always had it and I always kept going back to it, a little bit. I was like, “No, you have to find yourself.”‘

A year later, Dujardin said: ‘Some people ask me “how” or “why” about our breakup, honestly my whole family. Dean was the one. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. Heartbreak is probably one of the hardest things to deal with, right?’

Was that the end of the relationship?

After their fifth and sixth Olympic medals in Tokyo, the couple reconciled, despite the dressage champion’s claims that she had left him behind and that she had “tortured herself enough” during their time together.

The couple welcomed their first child, Isabella Rose, in 2023, now one year old. After her birth, Dujardin posted photos of the baby next to the horse she rode to victory in London in 2012: Valegro.

She wrote in a public post: ‘All I can say, Isabella, is that this horse has changed my life, just as you have now, and I love you both and this precious time so much.’

Isabella Rose is said to be in Paris to watch her mother compete. Dujardin told the Mail earlier this week: ‘People say having children is the end of your career, but we are showing that this is not the case.’

Six weeks after Isabella was born, she was back on her horse. She said it would be “really special to ride for her in Paris.”