Dressage-News

    Adrienne Lyle/Salvino               Steffen Peters/Suppenkasper        Sabine Schut-Kery/Sanceo

June 17, 2021

The United States Olympic team of Adrienne Lyle on Salvino, Steffen Peters on Supenkasper and Sabine Shut-Kery on Sanceo was announced Thursday by the U.S. Equestrian Federation. Nick Wagman on Don John was named reserve.

The team combinations are in Wellington, Florida and will leave for Germany at the end of the month for quarantine before heading to Tokyo for opening of the Olympics July 23.

The team:

*Adrienne Lyle, 36, of Wellington, Florida and Salvino, 14-year-old Hanoverian stallion owned by Betsy Juliano LLC

*Steffen Peters, 56, of San Diego, California and Suppenkasper, 13-year-old KWPN gelding owned by Four Winds Farm and Akiko Yamazaki

*Sabine Schut-Kery, 52, of Napa, California and Sanceo, 15-year-old Hanoverian stallion owned by Alice Womble

Reserves
Nick Wagman, 47, of San Diego, California and Don John, 13-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding owned by Beverly Gepfer will travel with the team to Tokyo.

Team alternates listed in selected order:

Olivia LaGoy-Weltz, 37, of Haymarket, Virginia and Rassing’s Lonoir, a 17-year-old Danish Warmblood gelding owned by Mary Anne McPhail and Olivia

Ben Ebeling, 22, of Moorpark, California and Illuster van de Kampert, a 13-year-old Belgian Warmblood gelding owned by Sasha Cutter for Nuvolari Holdings and Amy Roberts Ebeling

The team will be led by Chef d’Equipe Debbie McDonald and Team Leader Hallye Griffin.

Olympic competition will begin July 24 with the Grand Prix that is being used this year as a qualifier for the top eight teams to go on to the Grand Prix Special that will decide team medals. Individual medals will be awarded from the Grand Prix Freestyle.

“The team selected to represent us in Tokyo is incredibly strong and I’m looking forward to working with these combinations in the coming weeks to ensure we deliver performances our country will be proud of this summer,” Debbie said. “We’ve worked tremendously hard over the past year to adjust and prepare for these Games and it’s exciting to see all of the hard work begin to pay off. These combinations are up for the challenge that will be presented to us in Tokyo, and we are incredibly grateful for the continued support of our family, friends and fans around the country.”

The Team

Adrienne and Salvino are the top ranked American combination, at No. 15 in the world, and one of only three American combinations ever to have scored 80% at Grand Prix. Steffen Peters on Ravel and Laura Graves on Verdades are the other two.

Adrienne rode Wizard at the 2012 Olympics in London and the
2014 World Equestrian Games.

Salvino was bought by a syndicate of Americans, with the driving support of Akiko Yamazaki, as an American team prospect for Adrienne, before Betsy The duo were on the American silver medal team at 2018 World Equestrian Games at Tryon, competed at the 2019 World Cup Final in Sweden and a string of eight victories with no defeats in 2020 and 2021–including both final observation events where they set American records of 82.413% in the Grand Prix and 81.830% in the Grand Prix Special.

Suppenkasper will be taking Steffen Peters to his fifth Olympics spread over a quarter century, earning team bronze medals at two Games.

The German-born Steffen has been the most successful American rider
for much of the time since his first Olympics on Udon at the 1996 Atlanta
Games where the U.S. won team bronze.

Ravel, owned by Akiko Yamazaki and Four Winds Farm as is Suppenkasper, was Steffen’s mount for both the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics.
At the 2008 Games–the equestrian competition was staged in Hong Kong–
Steffen and Ravel placed third in the Freestyle but individual medals
were decided by combined Grand Prix Special and Freestyle results and
the pair missed out on a bronze medal by 0.305%. The partnership went
on to capture the World Cup at Las Vegas in 2009, only the second U.S.
rider to do so (Debbie McDonald, current U.S. team coach, on Brentina
has been the only other) then three months later the premier Aachen,
Germany World Equestrian Festival CDIO title.

In 2010, Steffen and Ravel took individual and freestyle bronze medals
at the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Lexington. In a return performance
At Aachen in 2011, the duo placed second overall in the CDIO behind the
legendary Totilas then ridden by Matthias Alexander Rath of Germany.
The result was loudly jeered by the crowd that preferred the American
pair. The London Olympics was their final competition.

At the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadelajara, Mexico Steffen rode
Weltino’s Magic to sweep the Small Tour competition.

Then along came Legolas, another horse owned by Akiko Yamazaki and Four Winds Farm, that was a successor to Ravel. With newcomer Laura Graves on Verdades, Adrienne Lyle on Wizard and Tona Konyot on
Calecto V, the team placed fourth at the 2014 World Equestrian Games. Team and individual gold were added by Steffen and Legolas at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto in 2015. Teamed with Laura on Verdades, Kasey Perry-Glass on Dublet and Allison Brock on Rosevelt, Steffen and Legolas helped the U.S. to bronze at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Suppenkasper was bought by Akiko and Four Winds Farm from Germany’s Helen Langehanenberg as a prospect for Tokyo where Akiko’s mother lives, Steffen rode “Mopsie,” the nickname inherited from his German caretakers referring to the horse’s weight, on the silver medal team at 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon. In CDI competitions on both the East and West Coasts of the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, Steffen and Suppenkasper started in 21 competitions, winning all 21.

Sabine Schut-Kery  has been partnered with Sanceo for well over a decade, their first competition back in 2010, a year after Alice Womble bought the horse in Germany and put it in the care of Sabine. Two years after the competition in California as a four-year-old, Sabine and Sanceo were at the World Young Horse Championships.

The pair moved up to Small Tour by 2015 and competition success in both
California and Florida led to them being selected to join a squad of Americans to compete in Europe. There, they earned a place on the U.S.
team to win gold at the Pan American Games alongside Laura Graves on
Verdades, Steffen Peters on Legolas and Kimberly Herslow on Rosmarin.

Sabine moved Sanceo up to Big Tour in 2018 and since then have focused on competing in California and Florida aiming for an Olympics start that was delayed by a year due to coronavirus. In four CDI Grand Prix starts this year at the Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, the pair won all four.

Traveling Reserve

Nick Wagman and Don John began their international career at Small Tour in 2015 moving up to Grand Prix in 2018. A year later, the pair were producing results to be selected for their first tour of Europe that included riding for the U.S. in Nations Cups in France and the Netherlands. The Global Dressage Festival winter circuit was on their schedule for 2020 aiming for a place on the American team for the Olympics, but postponement of the Games for a year meant going back to California then returning to Florida’s Global winter circuit in 2021 to put themselves into contention. This year, the pair logged three first places and four second place finishes and was fourth in both the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Special at the final observation event.