The observation event for U.S Olympic dressage team hopefuls wasn’t officially a selection trial, but last night’s results in Wellington, Fla., yielded a clear indicator of who is on top–with no surprises.(Check out the On the Rail section on this website for the announcement of the team).
Adrienne Lyle won both Wednesday’s Grand Prix and last night’s Grand Prix Special to music on Betsy Juliano’s Salvino, earning more than 80 percent both times.Her score of 81.830 is an American record for the Special, ahead of Laura Graves and the now-retired Verdades, who clinched an 81.717 in 2018.
What really counts, though, is that scores of 80 percent and above are an important key to getting a medal in Tokyo, and in the process of getting her mark, Adrienne collected a bundle of 10’s for several movements, including piaffe and the passage-piaffe-passage transition.
Adrienne Lyle and Salvino
“I just wanted to be able to put in another solid test with him,” Adrienne said, explaining her strategy for the night.
“I had one of the best feelings I ever had in the warm-up. The piaffe-passage went super secure.” She noted there was a slight mistake after the first pirouette when Vinny sat so hard that he went to jump into the one-tempis down centerline.
But he quickly recovered and she didn’t stress about it.
“He’s only human,” she chuckled..
“He went right back to business. He’s the horse you want with you down in the trenches. I feel like if I start to slip up he’s there to catch me.” He came out feeling fresh and fit. That’s a huge test in this heat and humidity.”
The Special will be the competition that decides the team medals in Tokyo, while the Grand Prix determines only which nations go on to the key battle. To simulate the conditions in Tokyo as much as possible, the competition was held under the lights, and everyone dealt with temperatures in the 80s.The music for the Special is a new wrinkle, but it’s just background melody and has no relation to a rider’s score. It adds a little extra interest, but the freestyle will remain a more important vehicle for music and how the horse’s performance relates to it..
The selection of the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club, usually the base for hunters and jumpers, provided a change of venue from the Global grounds down the street that are like a second home to the dressage horses during the winter circuit, so selectors could see how the horses reacted to a new venue. The VIP area at PBIEC drew a crowd of about 800, which was respectful during the performances and cheered enthusiastically as each competitor left the arena.
Steffen Peters also appears not only to have earned his ticket to Japan, but he did better in the Special with Suppenkasper than his more conservative performance on Wednesday, getting nearly 80 percent with a score of 79.532 for a personal best in the Special to finish second for owners Akiko Yamizaki and Four Winds Farm. Three judges marked him at more than 80 percent.
Steffen Peters and Suppenkasper (Leslie Potter/U.S. Equestrian)
“I really went for those extensions, that paid off…super honest, the changes were clean, really good pirouettes.” commented Steffen.
“You want a clean test, a reliable horse to go to Tokyo,” added the Olympic multi-medalist, who feels Mopsie can handle the conditions he will encounter there.
He noted, “I came around that last corner and said, `Let’s imagine we’re at the Olympic Games.’ Even today, I didn’t really have to push him.”
He switched places with Wednesday’s runner-up, Sabine Schut-Kery and Alice Womble’s Sanceo, who was consistently close to her Wednesday score of 78.978 with a 78.298, also a Special personal best for her. She was wearing the lucky tailcoat of Ali Brock, who rode in it on the bronze medal team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Sabine Schut-Kery and Sanceo (Taylor Pence for U.S. Equestrian)
So if all goes well when the horses are vetted, that would be the three-member team for Tokyo (I’m not a selector, but it’s pretty obvious.)
U.S. Equestrian Federation Dressage Technical Advisor Debbie McDonald was thrilled by the way things went during the event.
“I can’t even tell you, I’m super excited. I think we’ve got three extremely strong horses, very capable of going over 80 percent. I don’t think we ever had this kind of depth before. I think it’s exciting for U.S. dressage to have this happen right now,” she said.
Originally, the team candidates were slated to go to Europe during the late spring, but the Herpes outbreak there cancelled that concept and this was a very fortunate Plan B.
“ I think it was the smartest thing we ever could have done. I don’t think any other country has been able to duplicate what we have,” she said, referring to the heat and humidity.
“Hopefuly, when we get there, it’s going to pay off. By the time we get to Tokyo, watch out!”
There is also a spot for a traveling alternate, which should go to Nick Wagman on Beverly Gepfer’s Don John. As was the case on Wednesday, he finished fourth, but improved on his 75.652 percent Grand Prix score with a bold ride that left him all smiles as he netted 76.043 percent. The alternate spot is important, because there is a provision for substitution if necessary at the Games.
Olivia Lagoy-Weltz finished fifth as she did on Wednesday, a touch ahead of her Grand Prix score with 75.170 percent on Rassing’s Lonoir, owned in partnership with Maryann Macphail.
Alice Tarjan of Oldwick was sixth once again with her own Candescent, a striking black mare with an impressive front leg reach, but her score suffered due to a break in the extended trot. She still had a very respectable 73.404 for her first time in contention for an Olympic berth, less than 1 percent behind her Wednesday Grand Prix mark and remained a standout in the field of 14.
The heat, humidity and bright lights didn’t faze the ebullient Candescent.
“That horse is a war horse,” observed Alice.
“I was thrilled with her. She was fantastic all week and she really rose to the occasion. The horse really liked it much better than Global somehow. She was much more settled. It’s a bigger showgrounds. You can hack around during the day. She definitely was happier there.”
The event demonstrated that the 11-year-old Hanoverian mare is on the way to reaching her potential.
“All season, it was like you get glimpses of what you could have, but you could never put it together. But this week, I thought she put everything together a little bit, so that was really exciting,” said Alice, an amateur who often selects her horses as youngsters from videos and brings them up the levels herself.
Six American horses are set to go to Europe for pre-export quarantine before the team and alternate head to Tokyo. Although Candescent was sixth in the observation event, Alice noted there will be more to the decision about which horses go abroad than just what happened at PBIEC. The horses in the top six who do not go to Japan could ship back home or “stay on in Europe for competitions if that is part of their plan,” according to Hallye Griffin, the USEF’s managing director of dressage.
Alice Tarjan and Candescent
Alice hasn’t shown in Europe, but she isn’t expecting anything in terms of being included on the trip, pointing out some other riders are ranked ahead of her in the big picture of the selection procedures and their horses have more experience in CDIs than Candescent.
What means the most to her now is how the event demonstrated that Candescent is on the way to reaching her potential, though her owner emphasized, “I’m not in a rush.”.
“All season, it was like you get glimpses of what you could have, but you could never put it together. But this week, I thought she put everything together a little bit, so that was really exciting.”
