Dressage-News

WELLINGTON, Florida, Feb. 2–Riders and horses in the Grand Prix Musical Freestyle at the €100,000 (US$138,000) Exquis World Dressage Masters will perform their complete training sessions under lights at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center Friday night.

The riders offered to perform for spectators their complete training sessions of 45 minutes in two groups of four combinations instead of short warmup sessions in the same International Arena where the freestyle will be held Saturday night.

The Friday night gala kicks off at 7 p.m. with an exhibition by dancers from the Fred Astaire studio in West Palm Beach with the 1999 Pan American Games team gold medal horse Impressario ridden by John Zopatti.

The training sessions will be followed by a quadrille of riding ponies and Impressario ridden by Lisa Hyslop.

Changes were announced in the lineup for the Grand Prix starting at 1 p.m. Thursday.

The USA’s 2007 Pan American Games team gold and individual silver medalist combination of Lauren Sammis and Safacious HF owned by Hyperion Farm scratched as did Canada’s Victoria Winter and Proton.

Jacqueline Brooks and Balmoral, who won the 2009 Dressage at Devon Grand Prix, will now start in Thursday’s Grand Prix.

Lauren told dressage-news.com that Sagacious had not fully recovered from an upset stomach that occurred at Florida’s Gold Coast Dressage Association World Cup qualifier two weeks ago so the pair will miss their first CDI5* competition.

“He felt fine over the weekend but today he didn’t feel as good as he should,” she said. “I think he’s still suffering from the upset tummy and sore stomach muscles.

“I’m really bummed because I was so looking forward to this, but the horse comes first no matter what.”