Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

WELLINGTON, Florida, Jan, 10, 2014–Tinne Vilhelmsson-Silfvén and Don Auriello logged their 30th CDI victory Friday night in winning the Adequan Global Dressage Festival World Cup Freestyle to kick off the Swedish Olympian’s fourth Florida winter campaign.

In front of more than 1,400 spectators in a glittering launch of the third year of the Global circuit with the first of eight CDIs, Tinne and the 12-year-old Hanoverian gelding were awarded 81.575 per cent, with all five judges marking the pair above 80 per cent.

Lars Petersen on Mariett and Mikala Munter Gundersen on My Lady, both Wellington-based Danes, made it an all-Scandinavian affair for the top three placings as it was for the Grand Prix Thursday.

Lars and the 16-year-old Mariett scored 76.925 per cent while Mikala and the 14-year-old My Lady received 74.825 per cent. Both horses are Danish Warmblood mares.

For the Swedish combination it was their fourth World Cup event in the 2013/2014 season and the win earned Tinne another 20 points to boost their Western European League total to 74 points, a whopping 36 points ahead of Hans Peter Minderhoud of the Netherlands in second place on 38 points.

A field of only seven combinations started in the Freestyle, two from Canada, two from Denmark, one from Australia and one from Sweden and a sole American despite total prize money for the CDI of $53,300. Prize money for the seven Global CDIs over 12 weeks totals $530,000.

For the sold-out VIP pavilion of 500 seats and 800 spectators in the grand stand the musical freestyles under the lights was the attraction.

Despite Don Auriello being “a bit impressed” with the crowd and the “great atmosphere,” the six-time Swedish Olympian said she and Don Auriello (Don Davidoff x White Star) know the Cees Slings music very well.

“We were together with the music in a fantastic way,” she said. “It felt today I was in the right spot.

“It was really lovely with so may spectators, the feeling in here is really great.”

Tinne has recorded a total of 50 CDI victories with her string of Grand Prix horses, but 30 of them with Don Auriello whose Grand Prix career began in Florida three years ago and has since included the 2012 Olympic Games, two World Cup Finals and last year’s European Championships on the way to the No. 5 ranking in the world.

Lars Petersen, who has represented Denmark with success at Olympics, World Equestrian Games and World Cups, said he, too, knew his music totally in and out, “I knew exactly when I was in the places where I should have been and,” he joked, “where I should not have been.”

The competition was the first for Lars and Mariett since Devon, Pennsylvania last September and “the great atmosphere” made her tense and looky.

“It’s fantastic,” he said. “I think it’s like riding anywhere in the world.”

However, although Lars had set the World Cup Final in Lyons, France next April as a goal the FEI rules make his chances slim. Although he leads the North American League with an average score of 76.825 per cent from three World Cup events, as a Dane he cannot take one of the two places reserved for North American citizens nor can he transfer the results to the Western European League. He has to place his hopes on a “wild card” invitation, as does Mikala Gundersen who also was looking for a chance to make it to the World Cup Final.

Mikala was so concentrated on riding to her new freestyle, she did not know whether there were to two people or 1,000 around the arena though it was My Lady’s first performance with such an atmosphere under lights.

Mikala has been sharpening the freestyle for the past three months though this was the first CDI for the composition that draws on themes from “Burlesque” and “Chicago.”

Janne Rumbough, whose MTICA (“More Than I Can Afford”)Farm was the sponsor of the Freestyle, is also the owner of My Lady.

Allyn Mann, Director of Luitpold Animal Health that makes the supplement Adequan, said that entering the third year of a three-year sponsorship of the GDF has “already exceeded expectations.”

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