Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

SAUGERTIES, New York, Sept. 13–Lauren Sammis is ready to retire her Billy Joel medley which she and Sagacious HF won Pan American Games silver medal and carried them to near the top of American dressage with their win at the New England Dressage Association Fall Festival  Grand Prix Freestyle World Cup event Sunday.

Sammis and the Hyperion Farm’s Dutch warmblood gelding notched their 12th Grand Prix level victory with a score of 73.850 per cent following Saturday’s Grand Prix win that placed them behind only World Cup champion Steffen Peters and Ravel in 2009 competition results.

In second place was Canadian Tina Irwin and Amicelli on 69.700 per cent and Sharon McCusker of Ashby, Massachusetts on Juli Sherif with 68.850 per cent to place third.

“This is a once in a lifetime horse,” said Al Guden, owner of the Wellington, Florida Hyperion Farm.

“The horse is so special. But Lauren is doing such a fabulous job competing and managing the horse that is as big a factor as the talent of Sagacious.”

Sammis, a 38-year-old mother of twins who lives in the New York City suburb of South Orange, New Jersey, said that the Billy Joel freestyle has run its course. Judges at her recent competitions have told her that her horse is too elegant and graceful to be accompanied by somber New York late night cocktail lounge music.

Sammis and Sagacious were on the 2007 Pan Am Games gold medal team in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and won silver in the individual competition which included the musical freestyle.

“We’ve modified the freestyle for the Grand Prix,” she said, “but now it is time to have a different freestyle.

“The last time we will ride to the current freestyle will be at Devon later this month.”

She said she is working on a new freestyle.

“It won’t be classical music,” she said. “It will be more peppy. That is the way I am.

“We need to increase the degree of difficulty. We’re doing one and a half pirouettes now and we need to do two pirouettes and improve the quality and degree of difficulty of our other movements.”

After all, she said, she and Sagacious are like other combinations in that competing with the extraordinary gaits of Moorlands Totilas ridden by Edward Gal of The Netherlands is difficult so they need to perform in other ways to be competitive, rides that are accurate, error-free and entertaining to capture the interest of spectators.