Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

WELLINGTON, Florida, Mar. 19, 2021–Adrienne Lyle rode the American-bred Harmony’s Duval to their first score above 80% in two years at Big Tour to win the CDIO3* Nations Cup Grand Prix Freestyle under the lights at the Global Dressage Festival Friday night. Silver went to the 21-year-old Benjamin Ebeling on Illuster van de Kampert in only the second musical performance in less than three months at Big Tour.

Adrienne, based in Wellington, and the 13-year-old KWPN gelding scored 80.020% to beat their previous best of 78.060% that was posted in the Nations Cup here exactly a year ago that was the first ever freestyle for the duo and the last international equestrian event before the coronavirus pandemic triggered worldwide lockdowns.

Ben Ebeling rode Illuster to a score of 77.555% a day after earning silver on the U.S. team in his first senior Nations Cup competition. He and the 13-year-old Belgian Warmblood gelding were competing in the Under-25 division until January of this year.

Canada’s Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu whose All In is recovering from allergies that caused her to scratch from the big ticket CDI5* was third on 77.065%. The score from the five-judge panel included 72.800% from Mariette Sanders van Gansewinkel of Holland, two scores above 77% from Stephen Clarke of Great Britain and Carlos Lopes of Portugal, 78.375% from Janet Lee Foy of the United States and 79.325% from Christof Umbach of Luxembourg. Brittany and All In are leading Canadian combinations seeking to be on the nation’s team for the Tokyo Games.

For Adrienne, who is top ranked on the world standings on Salvino that is preparing to campaign for a place on the American team for the Tokyo Olympics, the competition “was worth staying up past my bedtime! There’s really nothing that compares to riding at Global on a Friday Night Stars. It’s one of my favorite experiences in the horse world.”

She has been competing Duval, bred by Leslie Malone of Kiowa, Colorado, from national training level in 2013 up to international Grand Prix beginning two years ago. The career has included winning the CDI4* at Leudelange, Luxembourg in 2019 followed by fourth place in the highly competitive Aachen, Germany CDI4* two weeks later.

The music she rode to was from the performance at Devon, Pennsylvania in 2011 on Wizard, the horse she competed for the U.S. at the 2012 London Olympics.

Benjamin Ebeling of Moorpark, California said that to ride Illuster in the Nations Cup after watching Adrienne and his father compete at the Olympics was “surreal.”

For the past four years that he has competed in Wellington, he has always wanted to compete under the lights on Friday night, and “to do this for the first time is really, really cool.”

And three straight days of competition–a fact that caused some riders to not seek to be on the team–had his horse “a little bit tired.”

In addition to his father, he is coached by Christoph Koschel of Hagen, Germany who was the anchor rider on Eaton Unitechno that clinched Nations Cup gold for Germany.

Brittany said that she would have liked for All In to be fitter for the Grand Prix and the Special that decided the Nations Cup placings of Germany first, USA second and Canada third.

“But each day I felt him better and better,” she said. “Tonight he felt like his old self again. That, for me, made me very happy and it was a relief to say, ‘He’s back, and he has this’.”

Results:

CDIO3* Grand Prix Freestyle