Richard Hannay Meade, OBE (born 4 December 1936) is a British equestrian expert and Olympic gold medal winning rider. He was the first British rider to have won an individual Olympic gold medal.
He was born in Chepstow, Monmouthshire; his parents were joint masters of the Curre Hounds at Itton. He was educated at Lancing College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he took an Engineering degree. He served in the 11th Hussars and later worked in the City of London.
In 1964, he won the Burghley Horse Trials on Barberry. Meade was a member of Britain's gold medal winning team in the three-day event at both the 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics, and won the individual gold in 1972. He also competed in the 1964 and 1976 Olympics. He twice won the Badminton Horse Trials, in 1970 on The Poacher and in 1982 on Speculator III. In 1972 he was voted BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year.
He was tipped at one time to be the future husband of Princess Anne. In 2013, Meade's son James became engaged to Lady Laura Marsham, daughter of the Earl of Romney.
In 2001, the RSPCA expelled Meade for organising a campaign to encourage supporters of fox hunting to join so as to put pressure on the society to change its policy.
Famous quotes containing the word richard:
“Words convey the mental treasures of one period to the generations that follow; and laden with this, their precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck and the languages of common life have sunk into oblivion.”
—Anonymous. Quoted in Richard Chevenix Trench, On the Study of Words, lecture 1 (1858)