Tinne Vilhelmson-Silfvén & Don Auriello Preparing for World Cup & Olympics Win Florida CDI-W Grand Prix
9 years ago StraightArrow Comments Off on Tinne Vilhelmson-Silfvén & Don Auriello Preparing for World Cup & Olympics Win Florida CDI-W Grand Prix
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
WELLINGTON, Florida, Feb. 25, 2016–Tinne Vilhelmson-Silfvén and her championship mount Don Auriello preparing for the World Cup Final at home in Sweden in four weeks, won the qualifying Adequan Global Dressage Festival Grand Prix Thursday.
America’s rising star Kasey Perry-Glass on Dublet waited through two days of the Grand Prix of 50 combinations from 17 nations to finish as runner-up after just three Big Tour shows. Shelly Francis of Loxahatchee, Florida on Danilo placed third.
The score for the six-time Swedish Olympic rider and the 14-year-old Hanoverian gelding was 76.080 per cent, while Kasey and her 13-year-old Danish Warmblood gelding were at 74.500 per cent and Shelly and Danilo were at 72.820 per cent.
Tinne said that Don Auriello, who began his Grand Prix career in Florida five years ago this month and likes it here, felt “super” in the warm-up and despite lack of halts and a mistakein the two-tempis is ready for the championships this year, beginning with the World Cup in Gothenburg next month and the Olympics in August.
In addition to the World Cup Final, on the assumption she completes the Freestyle Friday night and earns enough points to get an invitation, her lan is to take Don Auirello to Rotterdam inJune and then Falsterbo, Sweden in July as preparation of the Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“He feels like he’s there now,” Tinne said. “He didn’t used to be like this. He could be a bomb. Now he is ready to go in training.”
The 28-year-old Kasey, who moved to Wellington from California late last year to pursue her dressage career, said that Dublet “knows his stuff. Mentally he’s really good. We’re not going to push him but keep working on the basics.”
German 5* judge Katrina Wüst said she saw Dublet competing in Wellington two weeks ago when the horse made mistakes. “But judges are quick in changing their minds and not fixed in what they have seen in the past. Here, I was very impressed.”
In response to questions about some of the judging–a difference of eight percentage points between the highest and lowest scores for Kasey and Dublet, for example–she disclosed that the 5* judges at their annual meeting here two weeks ago had adopted a policy to deal with large disparities.
From now on, she said, judging panels will thoroughly discuss all differences above five percentage points and that would occur here.
She said it was difficult with 50 horses being judged over two days, especially for an inexperienced judge, but she believed the order of finish was correct.
Results:
