Kasey Perry & Dublet Debut at Grand Prix in Pursuit of Being on American Team
10 years ago StraightArrow Comments Off on Kasey Perry & Dublet Debut at Grand Prix in Pursuit of Being on American Team
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
WELLINGTON, Florida, Feb. 15, 2015–Kasey Perry used her entrepreneurial skills to get financial support for developing her dressage career has competed the spectacular Goerklintgaards Dublet at Grand Prix in their second year on the Florida winter circuit.
The 27-year-old from Orangeville, California rode Dublet in their Grand Prix debut for a score of 69.300 per cent at an Adequan Global Dressage Festival national competition. Their small tour results have placed the pair in the top five on America’s Pan American Games team rankings.
Kasey’s early success comes after graduating from Sacramento State University’s entrepreneurship program in 2011.
With her three sisters she had been introduced by her mother to pleasure riding, but was the only one to stick to riding. She took up eventing before turning to dressage at the age of 17.
After college, she moved to Spokane, Washington to pursue what had become her passion by training with Christophe Theallet, a graduate of l’Ecole Nationale d’Equitation, the French Riding Academy in Saumur.
While there, Kasey created a formal business proposal to her parents and grandparents for her to go to Europe to find a top quality horse to pursue her goals. The proposal was accepted.
Dublet, a Danish Warmblood gelding (Diamond Hit x Olympic Ferro) now 12 years old, was the horse she bought from Andreas Helgstrand.
Kasey started Dublet at international small tour in California in 2013 then came to Wellington for the first time for the 2014 winter circuit and returned this year in her campaign to make a United States team.
She also brought Trøstruplund’s Scarlet to Florida, an experienced Grand Prix horse that had been young horse star at the Danish Championships and she bought through Andreas to give Kasey experience at Big Tour. Among the offspring of the mare, now aged 16, is Ronaldo, a small tour horse ridden by Christopher Hickey.
In Florida, Dublet’s last five performances at international small tour were all above 70 per cent, included two victories and two second places this year. Kasey believes she and Dublet can achieve even better results.
The results could earn her a slot in the squad of four big tour and four small tour combinations to go to Europe for selection of the U.S. Pan Am team.
Of the three years building a partnership with Dublet, she said, “we are now just blossoming into a quality pair.”
Their performances at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center’s Stadium complex have drawn admiring audiences in appreciation of what her trainer, Christophe, calls a “really great match, riding classical, really clean and polished.”
Kasey came to Florida rather than stay in California because she believed the circuit was more competitive–“I have to ride in the big pond.”
Even though she is competing at the top levels, she has no groom but does all her own work that helps her develop bonds with her horses.
Dublet makes it easy–his personality and spirit is calm and relaxed, what Kasey describes as a “gentle giant, not a mean bone in his body who tries 100 per cent. He definitely is a once in a lifetime horse.”
She has never been on an American team, but admits to “ambitious goals” that include campaigning for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Kasey’s non-equestrian pursuits include serious running–half marathons and marathons.
As much as she loves Florida in winter, she maintains a long distance relationship with a boyfriend who was a cowboy and now a farrier who traveled to the California winter circuit in Thermal while Kasey is on the East Coast.
