Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

WELLINGTON, Florida, Mar. 2, 2017–Kasey Perry-Glass seeking to clinch a World Cup Final start on her Olympic team bronze medal mount Dublet won the CDI-W Grand Prix Thursday, the last qualifying competition at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival.

Kasey and the 14-year-old Danish Warmblood gelding scored 73.420 per cent for their second victory on this year’s winter circuit, the first competitions for the pair since last summer’s Rio Olympics.

Kasey, 29 years old and based in Wellington, already has one of two Grand Prix Freestyle scores required to qualify for her first World Cup Final in Omaha Mar. 27-April 2. She gets a chance to deliver that on Saturday night under lights at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center’s Stadium.

Olivia LaGoy-Weltz on Lonoir, the horse she competed at small tour on the American tour of Europe preparing for the 2015 Pan American Games, placed second on a personal best score of 72.920 per cent since starting Big Tour in Wellington a year ago.

Shelly Francis of neighboring Loxahatchee on Doktor was third on 71.920 per cent.

Kasey, whose freestyle choreography was put together by Adrienne Lyle, and the music by Tom Hunt, creator of freestyles for Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro, was blunt about wanting to go to Omaha.

“I’m going to ride my butt off,” she said of her desire to join team mate Laura Graves and Verdades in Omaha. Steffen Peters on Rosamunde also has two scores but Kasey has produced a higher result and if she repeats the performance will take the second spot assigned to North America.

Olivia, another of the corps of riders training with Debbie McDonald–Laura Graves, Kasey Perry-Glass and Adrienne Lyle are among the others–said Lonoir, a 13-year-old DanishWarmblood gelding, had grown in confidence as had she as a rider.

“A big piece of the maturity came with thePan Am tour of Europe,” she said.

“Another piece was that we ended up with our own small farm in Haymarket, Virginia. He knows that’s his house. He’s gotten really secure in his life. Everything’s gotten regular and in a routine; he trusts the situation.”

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