Putting it all together on a Wellington weekend

What a weekend! Wellington, Florida, is a perennial winter equestrian hotspot, but for the past three days, it outdid itself as a multi-discipline destination.

Think of the whole thing as a mini World Equestrian Games, without the baggage that WEGs have had to tote in recent years.

Capacity crowds added to the interest, as genuine fan enthusiasm always does, while top-notch competition played out in the three Olympic sports–show jumping, eventing and dressage.

“This year, we decided to try running them all together. In the past, we’d run eventing on a different weekend,” said Michael Stone, president of Equestrian Sport Productions, which presents the Adequan Global Dressage Festival and the Winter Equestrian Festival.

“But we thought we’d create this great atmosphere and encourage people to come to Wellington to watch high-level sport across the board. We’re really delighted with the turnout.”

I didn’t believe there was anywhere else in the world that presented all three sports at a high level on the same weekend, and Michael, a former secretary-general of the FEI (international equestrian federation) confirmed that.

“Even at Aachen (known for its jumping and dressage) who do eventing as well, they do it over two weekends,” he told me.

On Friday night, we had the dressage Grand Prix Freestyle under the lights, full of electricity and emotion at the Global grounds, where Steffen Peters clinched his ticket to April’s FEI Dressage World Cup Final.

Steffen, who has successfully battled depression, had a lot to be happy about with the magnetic performance he and Suppenkasper produced.

“It felt wonderful. It was one of the freestyles I have visualized for many days, many mornings, many nights, through dark times and it worked out  beautifully,” said Steffen, who wiped away a few tears after his final halt, even before he knew he had hit a personal best of 83.495 percent with the Dutchbred 12-year-old known as Mopsie.

Parts of this freestyle are new, but the music for the canter tour is what he used with Ravel, the horse on which he won the World Cup Final in 2009. That was a moment he will never forget (“I thought the stadium in Vegas was coming down when Ravel was done with the freestyle,” he recalled).

His performance here earned him the lead in the North American League and the right to compete in Vegas again when it hosts the final in April.

Second-place Olivia Lagoy-Weltz, who is also shooting with Lonoir for one of the two North American slots in Vegas, earned a score of 79.365, just shy of the 80.495 percent mark that was her personal best last month.

The next night, the action moved a mile away to the Winter Equestrian Festival at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center, where the stands were jam-packed. The crowd was totally geared up for the $401,000 Fidelity Investments 5-star grand prix with an amazing field of 40 from 11 nations, including European Champion and world number one Martin Fuchs of Switzerland. But he didn’t even make the 12-horse jump off after Sinner toppled a pole in the first round over Anthony D’Ambrosio’s route.

Even so, there was plenty of talent going for the $100,000 first prize, and none had a reputation for being faster than Canada’s Eric Lamaze and two friends from the U.S., Kent Farrington and McLain Ward.

The first of the trio to jump, Eric and Chacco Kid, finished the course in 39.69 seconds. Hard to beat, but if anyone had the ability to do it, Kent and Gazelle, the mare with wings, could manage. And so it was: the clock showed 39.51. Gazelle did take one extra stride for insurance heading to the final oxer after the combination, but really, how could McLain and Noche de Ronda, who until fairly recently was jumping 1.35 meters, get ahead of Kent over the 1.60 meter course?

The crowd was with McLain as his long-strided mare mocked both the clock and the rails, finishing in 37.47 as the fans roared in salute after a long, hold-your-breath moment. Anyone who saw this contest will remember it for the rest of their life. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more dramatic tiebreaker, even through nine Olympics, more than 20 World Cup finals and every WEG ever held.

“I got beat today by a top rider on a horse with a giant stride. He pulled out all the stops and took a big risk to win and pulled it off, so it was a great win tonight for McLain,” said Kent.

“That’s about all Ronda and I had to give,” said McLain. “What made the difference is that I kept taking the risk to take the leave-outs, even off every corner, and it worked out.

“Both Kent’s and Eric’s horses are super fast types. Where I have an advantage sometime is a bigger stride, but that course didn’t set up great for a bigger stride,” McLain continued.

“When you get to go after the one who sets the time, you have a bit of an advantage and normally you come out by winning or crashing, one or the other.”

Today’s activity was in the third Olympic discipline, eventing, for the show jumping and cross-country phases (dressage was held yesterday morning.) We were back at Global, where both of today’s segments in the $50,000 Mars Equestrian Eventing Showcase were held on the grass grand prix field that is a one-minute walk from the main dressage ring.

There was a casually festive feel to the crowd enjoying the sunshine as much as the competition. I loved seeing the little kids roll themselves down the steep grass bank topped by the Buckeye triple brush arrowhead double combination (not when the horses were jumping, of course!)

When I arrived at the field, I was a bit alarmed. Is this actually an arena eventing competition, I wondered, after seeing the show jumps interspersed with the eventing fences.

The last time the event was staged here, in 2017, the stadium jumping phase was held in the dressage arena. But because the dressage show was continuing at Global, the stadium jumping had to be on the grass.

Andy Christiansen’s route was influential, with big names–including leader Marilyn Little on RF Scandalous–dropping rails. Marilyn’s edge was so big, however, that she continued in first place despite addition of a 4-fault penalty to her dressage score of 19.4

The stadium segment was held during the morning, and happily those fences were whisked away before cross-country started in the afternoon.

The 3-minute, 9-second optimum time over the Mark Phillips-designed cross-country course wasn’t easy to make. Thirteen of the 23 who completed the event had time penalties. That included Marilyn, who ran into trouble at the Buckeyes and nearly fell off at the B element. She stuck on, only to have another problem at a corner in the middle of the course where she had to circle (but it wasn’t counted as a refusal, since it wasn’t part of a combination.

But Scandalous, who missed the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games with an injury, persevered. Although she came home with 4.80 time faults, she still held off Buck Davidson on Carlevo, albbeit by a mere 0.4 penalties.

There had been talk about selling Carlevo, but Buck said he felt the horse would be good for fun events like the showcase, and he was right.

Marilyn, meanwhile, is focusing on getting ready for April’s Kentucky 5-star, and isn’t looking ahead to the Olympics, just taking things step by step.

“This afternoon did not go as planned,” she said, and that was no understatement, though she did note, tongue in cheek, “I certainly made things exciting.”

She felt she didn’t have a normal preparation for an event at the beginning of the season where she went out fast on cross-country, and said, “I have to go back and regroup. We were perhaps a little under-prepared for this.”

Phillip Dutton finished third on his top horse, Z, 0.10 penalties behind Buck. He thought the showcase was a good prep for the Tokyo Olympics, where the course will be twisting in a brief, 8-minute optimum time. He’s shooting for Badminton, telling me it won’t be too much for Z to handle three months before the Olympics.

“It’s the most contested event in the world,” Phillip told me, explaining his goal.

“It will be good for me to go there; at this stage of my career, I’d like to go there again. This horse is good enough to do that, so I don’t mind putting myself out there and doing it.”

Whew, I’m beat. It was a long three days, but lots of fun, and it was neat to see so many friends visiting all three disciplines and just enjoying the broad range of what horses can do well.

Next week, the feature is the Nations Cup over at Deeridge Farm, just a couple of miles from Global. So terrific to have world class competition at three venues within a five-minute drive. (And I didn’t even mention the polo going on at the International Polo Club, also run by Equestrian Sport Productions). So it isn’t an exaggeration to say that if you love horse sports, there’s no place like Wellington.