Dressage-News

BLAINVILLE, Quebec, June 20–Victoria Winter and Proton won the Grand Prix Freestyle Sunday, a fraction ahead of the USA’s Lauren Sammis and Sagacious HF returning to competition for the first time in four months and debuting their new Yanni-based choreography.

Victoria, on Neil Ishoy’s 16-year-old Baden-Württemberg gelding, were scored at 73.40 per cent. The pair won the Grand Prix on Friday in their campaign seeking a place on Canada’s World Equestrian Games team.

Lauren and the 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding owned by Hyperion Farm and on whom she won team gold and individual silver at the 2007 Pan American Games,  scored 73.20 per cent. Canadian Olympian Jacqueline Brooks on Gran Gesto placed third with 71.90 per cent.

Lauren of South Orange, New Jersey, and Sagacious have already qualified for the U.S. selection trials in Gladstone, New Jersey, in August. She competed here to make Sagacious competition fit after a layoff with fitness issues.

And it was their first performance of the freestyle composed mostly of music by Yanni–Standing in Motion , Santorini and Notalgia–and Bastille Day by John Tesh for the walk to replace their Billy Joel medley that they used for years.

Lauren said she had several errors of mostly “stupid stuff” that prevented her from scoring higher with good piaffe and passage and the freestyle of “intensity and drama” that she is “really excited about.”

Conditioning from a slow return to work after back problems early this year had given the Dutch warmblood gelding more muscling and size that makes him “all grown up and looking like a real dressage horse.”

“He has a little more energy and I’m going home with a healthy, happy horse,” she said.

Other results:

4. Jamey Irwin CAN Dover 69.85%

5. Ute Busse CAN Lindor’s Finest 66.20%

6. Danielle Gallagher-LeGriffon CAN Abrikos 65.50%

7. Simone Williams CAN Wunder Ein 65.15%

8. Annie Desranleau CAN Maguin 63.55%

9. Diane Creech CAN Devon L 62.50%

10. Liz Streacie CAN Spotless 62.10%