Adrienne Lyle & Wizard Win Palm Beach Derby World Cup Freestyle, Mikala Gundersen & My Lady 2nd
11 years ago StraightArrow Comments Off on Adrienne Lyle & Wizard Win Palm Beach Derby World Cup Freestyle, Mikala Gundersen & My Lady 2nd
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
WELLINGTON, FLORIDA, MAR. 1, 2014–The American Olympic partnership of Adrienne Lyle and Wizard won the Palm Beach Dressage Derby World Cup Freestyle Saturday night in their campaign to get an invitation to the Final next month while Denmark’s Mikala Gundersen and My Lady claimed the runnerup spot with their best ever result.
Adrienne of Ketchum, Idaho who described Wizard as “doing better now than ever before” after a year off with an injury, scored 76.525 per cent just 0.400 per cent ahead of the Wellington, Florida-based Mikala and My Lady on 76.125 per cent compared with the their previous best of 74.825 per cent at these same show grounds two months ago.
The score also moved Mikala up a notch to second from what had seemed to her to be a perennial third place and its yellow ribbon that led to her being nicknamed the “yellow lady.”
Cesar Parra of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey and Van the Man placed third on 74.000 per cent that was the second best result for the pair with more consistency from the 12-year-old KWPN gelding on whom he hopes to make another United States championship team. Cesar took over the ride on Van the Man two years ago from German Olympian Dorothee Schneider.
The Palm Beach Derby was celebrating its 31st year as Florida’s oldest and premier dressage event. It was being staged outside of its show grounds in neighboring Loxahatchee for the first time.
Ar Saturday night’s Freestyle were the founders, German migrants Howald and Gisela Pferdekaemper, and Janne Rumbough, a Danish migrant whose energy and enthusiasm was a driving force in creating what was the world’s richest dressage show at the time. She is still an active competitor as well as the owner of My Lady.
Maryanne and Walter McPhail were also there. They took over the derby from its original home at the White Fences Equestrian Center, and maintained it as the centerpiece show at their Equestrian Estates, before deciding to move it to Wellington to be a part of the Adequan Global Dressage Festival that in three years has become the world’s leading winter dressage circuit.
Adrienne described Wizard as a “little spicier” who developed a “phenomenal feeling of power and elasticity.”
“He is doing better now than ever before,” she said. “The biggest thing for him is getting consistent. That’s what he lacked. He had the talent. He’s now starting to get more workmanlike.”
Mikala Gundersen said that My Lady has “a lot more in the hose still and I need to ride better.”
Although she would like to be invited to the World Cup Final, Danish combinations in the Western European League as well as Lars Petersen, who like her is based in Florida, is higher in the rankings.
Results:
