WELLINGTON, Florida, Feb. 27, 2016–Shelly Francis, beginning the fourth year of a Big Tour partnership with Doktor, produced a personal best score to post a narrow victory Saturday over Kasey Perry-Glass on Dublet performing only their third CDI Grand Prix Special.
Shelly of Loxahatchee, adjacent to Wellington, and the 13-year-old Oldenburg gelding scored 73.373 per cent in the Adequan Global Dressage Festival World Cup that beat their previous best of 71.922 per cent in Europe 18 months ago.
Kasey, now based in Wellington, and Dublet placed second on 73.137 per cent with Kelly Layne, an Australian team rider also resident in Wellington, placing third on Udon P on 70.157 per cent.
Shelly, a United States team rider at the 1998 World Games, said she was “really concentrating on every step… but I felt like he was very much there with me.
“I’m still kind of surprised that Kasey didn’t whip my butt. Now, I’m happy for the rest of the year.”
Shelly is competing Doktor and Danilo, a 12-year-old Hanoverian gelding and both owned by Patricia Stempel, in their quest for a place on the squad of up to eight combinations that will go to Europe after the Florida and California winter circuits for a series of events to decide the team to go to the summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Before this weekend’s World Cup event, Shelly and Doktor had moved up to fourth place in the official United States Olympic rankings, behind Laura Graves on Verdades and Steffen Peters on Rosamunde and Legolas.
Results:
