Dressage-News

WELLINGTON, Florida, Feb. 4, 2014–The richest dressage competition in the Western Hemisphere with total prize money of more than $163,000 (€120,600) is staged at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival this week and drawn riders from nine nations including four Olympic combinations.

The purses for the side-by-side CDI4* and CDI3* events presented by the Dutta Corp. will be exceeded this year only by the Global Dressage Festival’s CDI5* finale with $175,000 (€129,500) at stake at the end of March. Both events surpass the previous high of €100,000 for the World Dressage Masters that was dropped from this year’s calendar.

Both Florida events are among the lineup of seven international competitions being staged at the Global Dressage Festival this winter that also includes for the third year the only non-championship Nations Cup in the Western Hemisphere as well as the historic Palm Beach Dressage Derby that owner Mary Anne McPhail moved to a new home in Wellington.

The dressage series dovetails with the Winter Equestrian Festival of jumpers and hunters, both staged at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center.

The highlight of this week’s show–the largest so far in three years of the GDF–will be Friday Night Stars featuring the CDI4* Grand Prix Freestyle. The 3* Freestyle will be held Friday afternoon.

Event organizers are also working with Vinceremos, the handicapped riding program holding its major fund raising event the same night at the nearby International Polo Club, to have scouts at the Freestyle taking bids for auction items (see separate story).

A group singing a capella will provide entertainment during breaks at the Freestyle while an abbreviated version of the innovative dressage knockout competition in which two combinations simultaneously perform mirror versions of Grand Prix movements is tentatively planned.

Riders in the CDIs represent nine nations and include the American Olympic combinations of Tina Konyot of Palm City, Florida and Calecto V and Adrienne Lyle of Hailey, Idaho and Wizard and Canadian 2012 team members Jacqueline Brooks and D Niro and David Marcus and Chrevi’s Capital.

In a sign of the growing number of Europeans on the Florida winter circuit German championship team rider Christoph Koschel will ride Lumberjack, the 10-year-old Hanoverian gelding owned by Tim Dutta, in the national FEI classes held in conjunction with the international competitions.