Three USA World Games Silver Medal Team Pairs Competing Against Each Other at Global This Week
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WELLINGTON, Florida, Jan. 23, 2019–Three of the four American World Games silver medal team combinations are competing against each other at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival this week to show off the Grand Prix Freestyle they didn’t get to perform at last September’s championships.
Laura Graves on Verdades, Adrienne Lyle on Salvino and Kasey Perry-Glass on Dublet will compete in the World Cup Grand Prix Thursday and the Freestyle under the lights Friday night, the first competition for two of the pairs since the Tryon world championships. Laura and Verdades made their 2019 debut two weeks ago at Global.
Steffen Peters and Suppenkasper, the fourth pair on the WEG team, are scheduled to show in the CDI3* Grand Prix and Special at Temecula, California also this my-drugs-blog.com.
The American team at Tryon matched the previous best placing by the U.S. of a silver medal, at the 2002 WEG in Spain. Laura and Verdades took individual silver, the best finish by an American and that led to the pair becoming the first U.S. combination to rank No. 1 in the world.
Laura of the Orlando area community of Geneva and Verdades have posted one of three scores required to qualify for the World Cup Final in Gothenburg, Sweden next April, their fourth campaign to win the annual world championship title. Since the first Final in 1986, the World Cup has only ever been captured by two Americans–Debbie McDonald on Brentina in 2003 and Steffen Peters on Ravel in 2009.
Laura and Verdades, a KWPN gelding 17 years old, were reserve champions in both 2018 and 2017 to German superstar Isabell Werth on Weihegold OLD after placing fourth in Las Vegas in 2015.
The duo jumped to the top of the World Cup North American League standings two weeks ago with the first result for this year to earn one of two places reserved at the final for Canada and the United States. Shelly Francis of neighboring Loxahatchee and Danilo currently rank second on the North American standings based on their result from two weeks ago.
Kasey and Dublet, on the team with Laura and Verdades that took bronze at the 2016 Olympics as well as at WEG, is also seeking a start at Gothenburg.
Kasey, who splits her base between Wellington and her home in California, and the 16-year-old Danish Warmblood gelding are aiming for their second World Cup Final. The pair competed at Omaha in 2017.
She is considering some tweaks to her freestyle that the pair performed to be runner-up to Isabell Werth and Emilio last July at the CDIO5* in Aachen, Germany, probably the most competitive show in the world.
For Adrienne, now based in Wellington and the 12-year-old Hanoverian stallion Salvino, the Freestyle Friday night will be only the fourth for the pair in almost two years of Big Tour. Two of the musical performances were at Global last year and the third at Aachen.
However, she is well used to the world stage as the rider of Wizard at the 2012 Olympics and the 2014 World Games in Normandy as well numerous major events on both sides of the Atlantic in addition to the 2018 WEG team silver.
