USA’s Laura Graves & Verdades Vault Into Top 10 in World
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April 2, 2015
Laura Graves and Verdades have vaulted into the top 10 in the world rankings moving past the United States national championship pair of Steffen Peters on Legolas at No. 13 on the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) standings released Thursday.
Laura of Geneva, Florida and the 13-year-old KWPN gelding jumped to the 10th position from No. 20 the previous month for the biggest change in the top 50 ranked combinations and only the second American duo to be ranked in the top 10 for more than a decade.
The ranking of the pair was the highest for an American combination since Steffen Peters and Ravel stood at No. 8 in the world as of March 31, 2012 after rising as high as second in the world in June and July in 2009.
Charlotte Dujardin on Valegro, Great Britain’s Olympic, World Games and European champion who will defend her World Cup title in Las Vegas in two weeks, remained atop the standings. Helen Langehanenberg of Germany on Damon Hill NRW that she no longer competes remained in second place and Edward Gal of the Netherlands on Glock’s Undercover in third.
Laura, 27 years old, and Verdades improved their standings based on results of five victories and a second place in six starts at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Florida in March, the first competitions for the pair since placing fifth in the World Equestrian Games Grand Prix Freestyle in Normandy, France in August, 2014.
The climb in the world rankings has been dramatic over the past year–from their first appearance at No. 458 at the end of February, 2014 to No. 10 in the world and the top ranked American.
The ranking of Steffen of San Diego, California and Legolas dropped one place to 13th from 12th the previous month but made a big leap to 148th from 478th the previous month with the eight-year-old mare Rosamunde that he debuted at international Grand Prix at Wellington in February.
The impact of the Global circuit with seven CDI shows over three months in winter was shown by other big changes in rankings to riders from the United States and Europe who competed in Wellington.
Allison Brock of Wellington on Rosevelt moved to 51st in the world from 220th, Swedish Olympian Tinne Vilhelmson Silfvén on Divertimento to No. 52 from 194, Lisa Wilcox also of Wellington on Pikko del Cerro HU into 65th place from 245, Charlotte Jorst of Reno, Nevada on Kastel’s Nintendo to 71st from 131st and Great Britain’s Lara Griffith on Rubin Al Asad up to 104 from 366.
In the Under-25 world rankings, Belgium’s Jorinde Verwimp on Timao remained at No. 1 while Chase Hickok of Wellington, Florida on Sagacious HF moved to No. 2, up one place from the previous month.
Semmieke Rothenberger of Germany on Deinhard B moved to the top of the Pony world rankings, displacing Phoebe Peters of Great Britain on St. Lucci who dropped to second place.
The top 25 Grand Prix combinations ranked by the FEI
