Suspensions Lifted on Don Principe, Horizon to Allow Them to Compete in USA Championships Next Week
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May 8, 2017
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
Suspensions of the horses Don Principe ridden by Kaitlin Blythe and Horizon ridden by Adrienne Lyle were lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport Monday to enable them to compete in the Dutta Corp. United States national championships next week.
The decision by the Lausanne, Switzerland-based CAS, the court of last resort, came less than an hour before the deadline of noon U.S. Eastern time for entries for the championships.
It was three days after the two riders were cleared of any fault in feeding horses products contaminated in manufacturing, but inexplicably the FEI refused to lift the suspension of the horses.
Kaitlin of Rougemont, North Carolina now can ride Don Principe in the Brentina Cup Under-25 championship, her last chance to do so as she celebrated her 25th birthday the day her suspension was lifted and will be too old next year.
For Don Principe the championship in Gladstone, New Jersey May 17-21 will crown a career in which the 18-year-old Hanoverian stallion (Donnerhall x Prince Thatch XX) owned by Maryanna Haymon has been competed in America at Grand Prix for more than eight years and by Kaitlin this year to cap two decades of riding in youth divisions.
Adrienne of Ketchum, Idaho can compete Horizon in the Tim Dutta Intermediate 1 championship.
Since the lifting of the suspension on her as a rider, she had already intended to show Harmony’s Duval in the small tour division and Salvino in the Tim Dutta Grand Prix Championship.
The ruling by CAS reverses a decision by the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) that on May 5 lifted the suspensions on the two riders but maintained a 60-day ban on the horses that could have kept them out of competition until June 5.
No explanation was given for lifting the suspension on the riders but not the horses after evidence was provided to the FEI showing that Don Principe and Horizon had ingested a product contaminated in manufacturing with trace levels of ractopamine.
Adrienne and Elizabeth Juliano, the owner of Horizon, and Kaitlin and Maryana Haymon, the owner of Don Principe, went to CAS to challenge this decision.
