Tinne Vilhelmson-Silfvén & Divertimento Win Wellington World Cup Grand Prix Special
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By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
WELLINGTON, Florida, Mar. 7, 2015–Tinne Vilhelmson-Silfvén rode Divertimento to victory in the Adequan Global Dressage World Cup Grand Prix Special Saturday, their second victory in the Swedish Olympian’s fifth winter in Florida.
Tinne, a six-time Olympian for Sweden, and the 13-year-old Westfalen gelding scored 72.333 per cent for the win.
Mikala Gundersen, the Florida-based Danish World Games team rider, on My Lady was awarded 70.196 per cent for second with Shelly Francis of Loxahatchee, Florida on Danilo third on 69.529 per cent.
Divert, as the horse is nicknamed, “gets better and better,” Tinne said, since a lengthy absence from the competition arena after an injury. “It’s the best feeling so far in the Grand Prix. He’s kind of happy to let me ride him.”
Tinne’s last competition in Florida this year will be next week’s World Cup event, though she has not sought to qualify for the Final in Las Vegas in mid-April.
Instead, she has focused on developing Divertimento and Benetton Dream FRH, the 11-year-old Hanoverian stallion that Tinne began competing at international Grand Prix less than two months ago.
Don Auriello, the 13-year-old Hanoverian gelding that was her 2012 Olympic and 2014 World Games mount, has been in work in Florida but has not been competed. He is being prepared for the European Championships in Aachen, Germany in late summer.
“I’m working him every day,” she said. “He feels very, very good.”
Though he gets frustrated when the other horses leave the farm for the show grounds–“he feels like he’s put aside.”
Tinne said she is happy she stuck to her plan to develop Divertimento and Benetton and not compete Don Auriello as she will now have three Grand Prix horses to compete. Benetton will return to breeding when he goes back to Sweden.
The tentative schedule for Don Auriello is Hagen, Germany in April, the Aachen CDI5* in May and Rotterdam and Falsterbo, Sweden before the Europeans which are key in Sweden’s campaign to earn a team start at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Tinne rides the horses for Antonia Ax:son Johnson, the Swedish billionaire businesswoman who is a major supporter of horse sports including Falsterbo for the first time this year as well as the Central Park Horse Show in New York.
She was the first top European to come to Florida for the winter circuit and since then has seen an explosion in the number of riders and horses from around the world competing during the 12-week long Global Dressage Festival with seven international events and total prize money of more than $650,000.
Results:
