Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

WELLINGTON, Florida, Mar. 16, 2019–Adrienne Lyle, Olympic and World Games rider for the United States, rode the American-bred Harmony’s Duval to a personal best score to win the Global Dressage Festival CDI3* Grand Prix Special Saturday.

Adrienne and the 11-year-old KWPN gelding scored 75.851 per cent for the fourth win–including all three Grand Prix Specials–in six starts since beginning Big Tour here just five weeks ago.

Canadians Jill Irving on Degas who had won the Grand Prix four days earlier placed second on 72.660 per cent with Naima Moreira Laliberte on Statesman in third on 71.128 per cent, their best score so far since she began showing the 12-year-old gelding last June. The horse had previously been ridden by Jordi Domingo Coll of Spain.

This was the last competition this Global circuit for Duval that was bred by Leslie Malone of Harmony Sporthorses of Kiowa, Colorado. The horse is now owned by a syndicate of northwest United States supporters of Adrienne who rode Wizard at the 2012 Olympics and the 2014 world championships then on Salvino at the 2018 Tryon WEG where the U.S. team won silver.

Her goal for the summer is to be on the U.S. team with Salvino at the CDIO5* Nations Cup in Aachen, Germany and to show Duval in the CDI4*.

Since the Grand Prix when the flubbed both lines of changes, Adrienne worked Duval “a lot on perfecting the balance getting into the changes and it was able to keep him at a place where he felt controlled and mentally slow enough to know what was going on. He’s a horse that can get really amped up, mentally.

“The collection is great for him, the piaffe-passage and pirouettes are a real highlight for him, but his best quality in general is, I think, his work ethic. He would go all day and all night and he would never say ‘no’. He has an engine that never stops.

“When I can get everything in balance he’s like this incredible feeling because he has power that’s unlike any horse that I’ve ever ridden. When that power gets away from you it’s a little bit like a runaway train, but when I can get it all like that he really feels incredible and the honesty is really incredible in him.”

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