Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

AACHEN, Germany, July 23, 2018–When Kasey Perry-Glass did not compete Dublet for eight months after this premier horse show in 2017, she had to tune out the chatter about the American team bronze medal combination at the 2016 Olympic Games.

A year after starting that break, Kasey took Dublet back to the same World Equestrian Festival CDIO5* here and gave performances on the 15-year-old Danish Warmblood that silenced the chatter.

A fifth place finish to the winning ride by The Dutta Corp. team mate and world No. 2 Laura Graves on Verdades in the Grand Prix, third in the Grand Prix Special and the clincher, runner-up with a best ever career score to German superstar Isabell Werth on Emilio.

The success of American combinations Laura on Verdades, Kasey on Dublet, Adrienne Lyle on Salvino and Steffen Peters on Rosamunde provided what many noted was a strong tail wind heading to the World Equestrian Games opening in North Carolina in exactly seven weeks.

The influential and leading German equestrian magazine, St. Georg, described Kasey’s freestyle as “very big cinema” with “absolute world class” passage and piaffe.

For the home world championships, it reported, “The strong team performance in Aachen underscores the prospect of a team medal” for the United States. It’s likely the U.S. is thining more than “a” team medal, but at least matching the silver medal result at the 2002 World Games.

The world rankings for Kasey and Dublet will get a big boost from the Aachen results, from the current standing of 31st though after the show, the California native said she felt more like she was in “lala land.”

“I know I have to come out and do it again,” the 30-year-old rider told dressage-news.com.

But before that, she and the rest of what is expected to be the American team of four riders and horses and a reserve were flying home Tuesday. The U.S. federation has already announced the team will be named after the European tour.

Dublet was started at Big Tour by Kasey in January, 2016, after learning the Grand Prix on Scarlet for a couple of years.

And she made the critical decision to relocate to Wellington, Florida to train with Debbie McDonald, one of the most successful American riders with Brentina–including the 2002 WEG team–who also coaches Laura Graves and Adrienne Lyle, who had competed at the 2012 London Olympics. Debbie will succeed Robert Dover as the official team coach after the WEG.

Kasey said that since she began competing Dublet at Big Tour, she learned “to tune everything else out” except what she’s focused on.

“It’s hard when there’s a lot of chatter around you, to feel pressure not to do something that  you know is right to do–like give him a longer break.

“It was good for my head. I needed a little bit of time to decompress after the last two years. I’m not shy about saying it. I feel there are people out there that think of that as weakness. I don’t. I think I needed to have time to myself and be with my horse and make him happy.”

Back in Wellington, Dublet will move into Debbie’s barn rather than his stable a couple of miles away so the pair will have continual support before going to Tryon in early September.

After the break from the end of August in 2017 until the end of March this year, Dublet “came back feeling better than ever in his body,” Kasey said. “I think he needed that break for his body. Also we work on the smallest things. We don’t work on a whole lot of new things. We work on his suppleness, his relaxation, using every corner.

“I think those nitpicky things that we do really help him. He knows his job, so we dont have to practice the Grand Prix movements all the time. I think it’s important that he’s a horse you have to keep fresh in his head. But you’ve always got to go out there and keep trying.”

Kasey admits to being “a little bit shocked” at how quickly success has come to Dublet.

“He’s very talented,” she said, “I’ve always known that. It’s taken us a while to really mesh together with this Grand Prix and fine tune those little buttons of his.

“When I bought Dublet I’d never ridden in a Grand Prix before. So I got Scarlet and a lot of people said he was over my head. So I had to tune a lot of that out and believe in myself and believe in him.

“We showed here that we can be at the top, and we’ll stay there.

“I’m committed to him and committed to believing in our partnership.”