Dressage-News

Feb. 24, 2022

WELLINGTON, Florida, Feb. 24, 2022–Katherine Bateson-Chandler returned Alcazar to competition to win the Global Dressage Festival CDI3* Grand Prix for the Freestyle Thursday after a year’s absence recovering from an injury that knocked the partnership out of contention for a place on America’s Olympic team.

Katherine, based in Wellington, described the ride on the 17-year-old KWPN gelding “as one of the best feelings, one of the most honest feelings I’ve had in the ring with him” despite the score of 68.826%.

In the decade-long partnership between Katherine and Alcazar the gelding suffered a severe colic feared to be fatal and requiring surgery during the Nations Cup at Aachen, Germany in 2016 then being knocked out of Olympic selection trials with an injury five years later. However, Alcazar recovered to return to competition at Global in 2017 to claim a victory in a CDI4*. The pair did the same with Thursday’s victory in their comeback show.

Hope Cooper of Concord, Massachusetts and Hot Chocolate W in her second CDI Grand Prix start since moving up from the Under-25 division placed second on 68.500% with Susan Dutta on Don Design DC third on 67.174.

Katherine, on the U.S. team at the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Kentucky, plans to have her first competition , on Haute Couture, the 10-year-old KWPN mare, at the Global CDI next week. The horse was trained and competed last September at the European Championships by Dinja van Liere of the Netherlands before being bought two months ago by sponsor Jennifer Huber for Katherine to compete.

She plans to take Alcazar and Haute Couture to Europe for the summer to resume training with her long-time coach, Carl Hester that has been interrupted by coronavirus the past two years.

Results:

CDI3* Grand Prix for Freestyle