This is the weekend it all came down to the wire for the U.S. Olympic dressage ranking list.
Qualifying scores earned at the 3-star TerraNova show near Sarasota, Fla., will help determine which eight candidates head to Europe in the coming months. Competition there will be used in selecting the three-member team for the Paris Olympics.
Several of the horses were latecomers to the quest, joining the contest with new riders just this year. Three are owned by Zen Elite Equestrian Center in Fort Lauderdale.
Endel Ots rides the most celebrated of the three Zen horses, Bohemian, guided to fourth in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics by Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour of Denmark. He capped his campaign with a victory in the Freestyle, where he was marked at 75.670 percent.
Adrienne Lyle’s rides, Helix and Lars van de Hoenderheide, are the others in the Zen trio. Lars won the Special (71.723), with another new pair, Marcus Orlob and Alice Tarjan’s Jane, second on 69.872.
Noting that Saturday was a “blistering hot day,” Adrienne commented that while Lars completed his qualifying criteria for the Olympic short list with his Special victory despite the weather, Helix “did the freestyle just as thunderstorms rolled in.” She said “he found the plants blowing in the wind to be quite scary, but still managed to pull off a podium finish and complete his qualifying criteria.”
Saying it was time for a big sigh of relief after qualifying criteria were completed, Adrienne thanked Zen’s owner, Heidi Humphries, and her own mentor, Debbie McDonald, as well as her grooms.
Kasey Perry-Glass, who had been a team regular with Doublet, now retired, was second in the freestyle on her new ride, Heartbeat W.P. (72.615). Helix, winner of the 3-star Grand Prix on Friday, was third with a score of 72.560 percent.
The Freestyle is a requirement for Olympic candidates, but it doesn’t count in their overall standings. It’s the Grand Prix and the Special, which determines the team medals at the Games. The Freestyle secures individual medals, which are considered less important than team medals in the big picture.
The U.S. Equestrian Federation next week will announce the pairings that go to Europe for observation competitions. The list is likely to include Olympic veteran Steffen Peters, who has been at the top of the rankings with his 2021 Tokyo mount, Suppenkasper. He did not come East for competitions this year, and neither did fellow Californian Anna Buffini, who is also has been near the top of the list with Fiontini.
Among the others in contention in addition to Adrienne, Endel, Marcus and Kasey include Ashley Holzer with Hansel, second in the Grand Prix and fourth in the Freestyle; Katherine Bateson-Chancler with Haute Couture, Sarah Tubman (First Apple) and Anna Marek (Fire Fly), who did not compete at TerraNova but already was qualified.
Click here for TerraNova Grand Prix results
Click here for TerraNova Grand Prix Special results
Click here for TerraNova Freestyle results
