Endel Ots & Lucky Strike Preparing for Grand Prix After Capturing USA Intermediate 1 Championship
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Aug. 26, 2019
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
With the United States Intermediate 1 championship softening the disappointment of missing the Pan American Games, Endel Ots is working on putting together the Grand Prix for Lucky Strike that has been one of the nation’s most successful partnerships up to Small Tour.
Endel and the nine-year-old Hanoverian swept the three championship classes of Prix St. Georges. Intermediate 1 and Freestyle for an average of 74.255 per cent, one of 14 national titles competed at Wayne, Illinois.
The record for the pair so far includes the World Young Horse Championships as a five-year-old and again as a six-year-old then winning the U.S. Developing Prix St. Georges title in 2018.
Endel, 33 years old and based in Wellington, Florida was selected for the all Small Tour U.S. team for the Pan American Games held only once every four years. On the way to the airport a month ago to fly to Lima, Peru, Lucky Strike sustained a minor injury, enough to cause Endel to withdraw the horse.
He went to Lima to support his three team mates who won silver.
“I haven’t put a clear timeline for when he will be ready for the Grand Prix CDIs,” Endel told dressage-news.com. “It’s really up to Lucky. These last two years I have been more focused on the small tour for the Pan Am Games. With Charlotte’s help we are working on putting all the Grand Prix pieces together.”
Nick Wagman of San Diego, California was a double winner–on Don John for the Grand Prix championship and on Ferano for the Developing Grand Prix title.
Only four combinations competed in the Grand Prix, but none of the eight American pairs ranked in the top 80 in the world. Nick rode the 11-year-old KWPN gelding on the Dutta Corp. U.S. teams in France and the Netherlands this summer.
Nick rode rode Ferano, a nine-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding, to the USA Developing Grand Prix Championship.
Emily Miles on Sole Mio took the five-year-old title with a final score of 91.600% three weeks after competing at the World Young Horse Championships in Ermelo, Netherlands. She had qualified for the world championships with an average of 82.733%.
Sole Mio, she said, was “ready to show off and confident. He is such an amazaing horse.”
