Simone Pearce Rides Olympic Prospect Destano to Aussie Grand Prix Record Score at Achleiten CDI4*
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July 24, 2020
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
Simone Pearce rode Destano, her Tokyo Olympic prospect, to an Australian record Grand Prix score in the CDI4* at Achleiten, Austria Friday in only the third international competition for the partnership.
The Germany-based Simone and the 13-year-old Hanoverian stallion scored 74.152%, beating the previous record of 73.913% held by Kristy Oatley and Du Soleil and set in May last year.
Simone, who celebrated her 29th birthday a week ago, placed third on Destano, behind Isabell Werth on her Olympic team gold medal and world No. 2 mount Weihegold OLD and Austria’s four-time Olympian Victoria Max-Theurer on Abegglen FH NRW.
Sired by Desperados and owned by Gestüt Sprehe, Destano is recorded as jointly owned with Simone as required to be an Olympic mount for the Australian.
The previous competitions for Simone and Destano were the debut at Dortmund, Germany in March before horse sports were shut down by the coronavirus pandemic and two second places at Mariakalnok, Hungary when the sport resumed in late June.
Simone also enjoyed success Friday on Diamond First scoring 84.400% to win the five-year-old preliminary test. The pair received 9.3 for the trot, 8.5 for walk, 8.0 for canter, 7.9 for submission and 8.5 for perspective.
Diamond First, an Oldenburg (Diamond Hit x Fürst Heinrich) is also owned by Gestüt Sprehe.
Simone works for the German stud that also owns Desperados, the Hanoverian stallion that Kristina Bröring-Sprehe rode to Olympic team gold in 2016 and silver in 2012 as well as medal-winning performances at the 2014 World Equestrian Games and European Championships. The pair was also No. 1 in the world.
She joined Sprehe in Germany early this year after working in the Netherlands and at Helgstrand Dressage in Denmark where she developed young horses as well as competing at top sport.
“It’s been an awesome day. I’m so happy with the horses!!!” Simone told dressage-news.com.
“Destano is getting better and better and I feel like we are really coming together as a combination both in training and in the ring. It’s only our fourth ever show together so we are still finding each other and there is definitely a lot to fine tune and improve but I’m so so happy with his development in the past six months and the way he continues to improve.
“I’m very very happy to now have met the prerequisite qualification scores to be eligible to selected to ride for the Aussie team in Tokyo–that was definitely a goal of mine this season.
“And to have broken the Australian Grand Prix record is just amazing!
“I’m the ultimate perfectionist, so now together with my trainer Oliver Oelrich I want to really fine tune our work and strive to get up in the high 70s in the year to come.
“I just want to say a huge thank you to Gestüt Sprehe for allowing me the opportunity to aim for long term goals with such a wonderful horse.
“It’s the first time in my career I’ve had to chance to keep a horse and try for the big championship shows, I’m just so thankful!”
