New Jersey dressage competitors made quite an impact at the U.S. Equestrian Federation national championships last summer, and they proved over the weekend during ShowPlus Dressage at Devon that was no fluke.
Even though multiple national champion Alice Tarjan of Oldwick wasn’t riding in FEI classes at Devon, since her top horse just came home from the Aachen, Germany, show, the Garden State’s dressage strength was evident at the Heritage competition on Philadelphia’s Main Line. (Alice’s Ice Princess did win the Materiale Three-Year-Old Fillies and the USDFBCS Filly Final during the breed show.)
The busiest Jerseyan during D at D was trainer Lauren Chumley, who rode in 14 classes. She brought nine horses from her Pittstown stable, and handled eight of them, while her groom, Jessie Hayes, rode the other one. Lauren and Jessie split the chores involved with the care and grooming of the horse at the showgrounds.The workload doesn’t faze Lauren.
These are only some of the ribbons Lauren had on display by her stalls at Devon. (Photo © 2021 by Nancy Jaffer)
“I have more energy than anyone I know,” stated the 37-year-old, who is also an eventer and competed in the American Eventing Championships during the summer.
At Devon, she had to get up at 4:30 a.m. in order to fit everything in. The array of ribbons by her stalls showed how successful she was, with big wins in the breeding section of the show, and nice prizes in the performance section.
“I love Devon. It’s my favorite show,” said Lauren, who has been coming to the iconic location for 14 years. Discussing some of the horses she brought, Lauren said, “They’re a little green but I thought they were ready to try this, dip their toe into the bigtime. I think it’s a really good place to take young horses under saddle.
“It’s a lot of atmosphere, but they have to get used to that if they’re going to go on to FEI and do big things. I can’t hide in my backyard.This is a destination. This is just the place to be, to show here and do well with the crowds and vendors…Devon’s got a magic to it.”
Lauren and Kyro. (Photo © 2021 by Nancy Jaffer)
Lauren just returned from her first trip to Aachen, where she groomed for Alice.
“That was amazing, but I’m still so excited about Devon. It’s a completely different kind of show.”
Lauren was thrilled about getting her first ribbon in a CDI, when Santa Barbara Dash took fourth in the Prix St. Georges.
“That’s a big deal to me,” she said
She won the Three-Year-Old Geldings Under Saddle with Notorious H20, bred by Kendra Hansis’ Running Water Warmbloods in Stockton (another Running Water horse, Fortunato H2O, won the Grand Championship and USDFBCS Five-Year-Old Materiale Championship for owner Lehua Custer).
Lauren also took the Materiale Four-Year-Old Test for stallions and geldings with Masterful Dream, who was the USDFBCS Four-Year Old Materiale Champion and won the USEF Four-Year-Old Test; the Materiale Five-Year-Old Mares with Leeloo Dallas and was second in Fourth Level Test 2 with Kyro, among other notable placings.
Lauren’s “life goal” is to compete at Devon in both the three-year-old class on the Tuesday and the Grand Prix under the lights on Saturday night.
“I think that would be so cool. You go to Europe, and you see the German A-team also showing in the stallion shows and the young horse shows,” she explained.
“That’s not how it works here. Europe has this formula riding three, four and five year olds and doing the Grand Prix at Aachen. I think it’s really cool to be a horseman and trainer, not just a rider of Grand Prix (horses) that somebody else trained. That’s what I’m trying to do, but I’ve got a long way to go.”
Other Jerseyans stood out in performance classes. Cesar Parra of Whitehouse Station won a very competitive 3-star Intermediate 1 class with a total of 70.981 percent on Belle Ami, by Bellissimo M. Marks over 70 percent were not freely given at this show, and two of the three judges put him at more than 71 percent for his efforts with the 12-year-old Westfalen mare owned by Brooke Centrella. He then went on to win the I-1 freestyle with 73.575 percent as the show came to an end..
He’s number one: Cesar Parra and Belle Ami. (Photo © 2021 by Nancy Jaffer)
Cesar worked with the mare when she was five, six and seven before Brooke took over. Then she passed the horse back to him this year. He qualified for Devon a few weeks ago at the Horse Park of New Jersey and noted proudly that Saturday’s class was only the third time he had ridden Belle Ami in a CDI.
“This is a good one,” he said, adding, “When she’s ready, I’m going to move her up.”
But he doesn’t want to rush, noting “at the very end for me, I’d rather have a wonderful sound Prix St. Georges (horse) than a nice Grand Prix lame. I can truly say it’s about the journey. At one point I think I was too much into the score. I care about scores, who doesn’t care, but it’s secondary to my horse is happy.”
He also won the FEI Young Horse Six-Year Old Finals with Fanta, scoring an 83.
Second place in both the 3-star I-1 and its freestyle went to Kim Herslow of Stockton with the Lusitano Elvis HI. She was marked in the first class on 68.921 percent for the horse she owns with Aileen Cascio.
Kim Herslow rocking with Elvis HI. (Photo © 2021 by Nancy Jaffer)
At the USEF championships she learned that “definitely less warm-up is better. That’s huge. That’s the key to him.”
Replaying the first class, she said, “I wish I didn’t have the bobbles but I was trying to go for a little more expression, so you have that risk. In the freestyle, she earned 72.725 percent for her ride accompanied by–what else?–the music of Elvis Presley.
That was to be Elvis HI’s last start at Small Tour. Now she’s aiming him for Grand Prix.
Other New Jerseyans in the ribbons include Katryna Evans, who works for Cesar and won both FEI Young Horse Finals for Five-Year Olds with Mollegardens Fashion.
Bridget Hay of Ringoes was second and third with Shanahan in the Six-Year-Old Finals. She also was second in the Grand Prix Freestyle qualifier with Faolan, who was fourth in the freestyle itself. Third in the freestyle went to Shannon Stevens of Annandale, a CDI newcomer on Ferrari. Allison Nemeth of Flemington was a winner aboard Tiko in the FEI Young Riders category.
