Dressage-News

Nov. 21, 2018

United States Equestrian’s 2018 Pegasus Awards for 2018 were announced Wednesday and include incoming dressage team coach Debbie McDonald and former coach Anne Gribbons.

Debbie McDonald, one of the most successful American competitors and trainers who becomes the U.S. dressage Technical Advisor at the end of this month, was among four named to receive Pegasus Medals of Honor that will be presented January at US Equestrian’s annual meeting in Palm Beach, Florida in January.

Debbie, 64 years old and based in Wellington, Florida, was a long-time jumper rider who switched to dressage and made history on the Hanoverian mare Brentina. The pair won team silver at the 2002 World Equestrian Games in Spain, in 2003 became the first American combination to win the World Cup, won team bronze at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2006 World Games in Germany and was on the U.S. team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The duo also won Pan American Games gold in 1999.

Debbie is the coach of Laura Graves and Verdades that were on the 2016 Rio Olympics bronze medal team and won team and individual silver at this year’s Tryon WEG and currently No. 1 in the world, the first American duo to achieve the top standing. Debbie also coaches American team riders Adrienne Lyle and Kasey Perry-Glass among others.

Janine Malone, 71 years old and an FEI 3* steward, will also receive a Pegasus Medal of Honor. Janine received the U.S. Dressage Federation Lifetime Achievement award in 2014 after 18 years as a member of the USDF Executive Board as Region 1 director and USDF secretary. She received the first Volunteer of the Year award in 1998. She later went on to become chair of the U.S. Dressage Finals Organizing Committee and a perpetual trophy in her name was was institued in 2013 awarded to the adult amateur Prix St. Georges champion. She has been a USEF judge, technical delegate, steward, event organizer and charter member and past president of the North Carolina Dressage and Combined Training Association.

Other Pegasus Medal of Honor recipients will be Robert Ridland, technical adviser of the U.S. jumping team that won gold at the 2018 Tryon WEG, and Ellen DiBella, president of the Western Dressage Association of America.

The Walter B. Devereux Sportsmanship Award was made to Anne Gribbons, 72, of the Orlando area community of Chuluota, Florida, a lifelong competitor, trainer and judge. Anne was U.S. team Technical Advisor 2010 through 2012–covering the Kentucky World Equestrian Games and the London Olympics. She is a top ranked International Equestrian Federation (FEI) 5* judge; one of her last official judging duties was president of the ground jury at this year’s World Games in Tryon, North Carolina.

Georgie Green, longtime Morgan horse owner, breeder and exhibitor, will receive the USEF Lifetime Achievement Award.

Ellen Scripps Davis Memorial Breeders Award goes to Allyn McCracken of Bannockburn Farm in Patricksburg, Indiana.

Richard E. McDevitt Award of Merit: Harry Chapman, Hunter Harrison, Yum Kee Fu, Michael Rhenhemier, and J. Richard Wilkinson