Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

WELLINGTON, Florida, Mar. 15, 2018–Horizon made her Big Tour debut in the Global Dressage Festival CDI3* Grand Prix Thursday and despite a couple of errors that Adrienne Lyle said were hers as the rider, the pair scored above 70 per cent for third place.

Adrienne has so much confidence in the 11-year-old Oldenburg mare that was the United States Intermediate 1 champion in 2017 the couple will compete in the CDI3* Grand Prix during the Nations Cup two weeks from now, including showing off a freestyle for the first time.

The 2012 Olympic team rider and Horizon that was bought by Elizabeth Juliano who also owns Adrienne’s other Grand Prix mount, Salvino, was awarded 70.109 per cent for the ride when the temperature was 43F/6C, unusually cold for Florida in March. Among the spectators was Ullrich Kasselmann and his wife, Bianca, from Performance Sales International of Germany where Betsy bought Horizon in December, 2010.

Sweden’s seven-time Olympian Tinne Vilhelmson Silfvén on Benetton Dream FRH won the Grand Prix with a score of 71.522 per cent in the first international competition for the 14-year-old Hanoverian stallion in more than a year. Canada’s 2016 Olympic combination of Megan Lane and Caravella were second on 71.000 per cent.

Adrienne was able to make a last-minute CDI entry for Horizon (Hotline x Don Schufro) after national Grand Prix and a Grand Prix Special earlier this year in her campaign to join a group of about eight American horses to go to Europe for the summer ahead of the World Equestrian Games in Tryon, North Carolina in September.

For the first time this year in the centerpiece arena, Adrienne said, Horizon backed off a little at the start but by the final centerline of passage and piaffe “she was showing off what she’s capable of.”

“We got her in the CDI much sooner than originally planned,” she said, “as we’d originally thought of the Tryon CDI3* next month as being her first Big Tour.

“But we decided to just go for it, just jump in.”

Horizon is already on the U.S. pre-elite squad while, the 11-year-old stallion Salvino that Adrienne began showing Big Tour a year ago, is on the U.S. Elite squad, along with five other combinations.

A drug test in February 2017 that found the banned substance ractopamine in Horizon as it did with another horse, Don Principe ridden by Kaitlin Blythe. Extensive testing of feed and supplements of the two horses found that a gastric supplement had been contaminated in production and the manufacturer withdrew it from the market. The banned substance was not disclosed on the product label.

The international Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) issued a temporary stay of the suspensions that allowed both horses to compete in the American championships but the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) is still pursuing the case.

Results:

CDI3* Grand Prix for the Special