World champion Fry, who grew up near Driffield in Yorkshire but now lives and trains in the Netherlands, qualified for the final in fourth place with a score of 78.913%.
With a “best of British with a French twang” soundtrack featuring Queen, the Beatles and the national anthems of Britain and France, she bettered that score in Sunday’s medal performance.
Her score put her top of the standings with three riders to come, and while Werth and then Von Bredow-Werndl moved ahead – the latter with a score of 90.093% – Denmark’s Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour could only place fifth to confirm the British medal.
Fry’s late mother, Laura, competed alongside Hester at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
Fry started training with him as a teenager and it was Hester who encouraged her to go to the Netherlands, where she now trains under Danish Olympic medallist Anne van Olst.
Hester scored 85.161% on Fame while Moody, riding Jagerbomb, achieved 84.357% at her maiden Olympics after replacing Charlotte Dujardin in the squad.
Fry’s medal is GB’s fifth in Olympic individual dressage. Three of those – including gold in London and Rio – belong to Dujardin, who withdrew on the eve of the Games and was later provisionally suspended by equestrian’s world governing body for “excessively” whipping a horse.
It created a frenzied build-up to competition for Fry, Hester and Moody, but Fry admits it could not have “ended much better”.
“I think it really shows what an incredible support team we have,” she said.
“It has brought us so close as a team, and everyone has really grouped together and given us so much confidence to go out there and do what we know we can do.
“To come back with a team medal and an individual medal, it’s just incredible.”
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