Dressage-News

MIAMI, Florida, Aug. 3, 2021–Sanceo, Salvino and Don John arrived back in the United States Tuesday after silver medal performances at the Tokyo Olympics, ready for a vacation after traveling more miles than the circumference of the globe to produce the best results for an American team in almost three quarters of a century.

The three horses appeared fit and bright after the journey home, beginning Saturday night in Tokyo (morning in the U.S.), a day’s layover in Europe, to be met about 60 hours later at Miami International Airport Tuesday. There, Dutta Corp. grooms helped unload the horses and move them to quarantine quarters for two days.

American and Canadian team horses and a handful of others from riders for other nations based in North America traveled significantly greater distances than horses from the rest of the world, Atlantic round trip to join most other horses in Europe for the flight to and from Tokyo.

The team horses returning Tuesday were Sanceo, a 14-year-old Hanoverian stallion ridden by Sabine Schut-Kery of Napa, California and Salvino, 14-year-old Hanoverian stallion, ridden by Adrienne Lyle of Wellington, Florida along with reserve Don John, 13-year-old KWPN gelding competed by Nick Wagman of San Diego, California.

This year’s Olympic result was the best for an American team since the only previous silver medal squad, in London in 1948.

The horses will remain in quarantine until Thursday and after a few days rest in Wellington, Sanceo and Don John will fly to California while Salvino will go to Colorado where Adrienne will be based for the next few months.

Suppenkasper, the 13-year-old KWPN gelding that was ridden on the team by Steffen Peters of San Diego, California was resting up at the stables of Helen Langehanenberg in Munster, Germany waiting for a berth to fly directly to Los Angeles. Suppenkasper was bought by Akiko Yamazaki, longtime sponsor of Steffen, in 2017 from Helen as a prospective team mount for Tokyo.

All the riders are home.

They competed at the Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Florida in 2020, but the selection efforts didn’t count when the Olympics were deferred for a year by coronavirus. The pandemic prevented a planned European tour considered essential to compete against top combinations at premier events, and equally to acquaint the judges with the American team.

The Californians came back to Wellington–Adrienne and Salvino are based in Florida–to go through the process again in 2021. After the Florida winter circuit, the top prospects went home until invited back to Wellington for the so-called observation event in place of a European tour.

The final four stayed in Florida until it was time to go to Europe to quarantine the horses for about 10 days then join the airlift to Tokyo.