Sanceo Recovered from Short-Term “Health Issue” Not in Time for Wellington But Go Home to California to Seek World Championship Team Spot
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By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
WELLINGTON, Florida, Mar. 21, 2022–Sanceo. ridden by Sabine Schut-Kery to Olympic stardom, has recovered from a “short-term” health issue too late to compete at the Global Dressage Festival so qualifying has been delayed for California in early May for a European show tour to earn a place on America’s world championship team.
Sabine based the Hanoverian stallion aged 16 in Wellington throughout the winter circuit with the intention of qualifying. Her Olympic silver medal team mates Steffen Peters on Suppenkasper in California and Adrienne Lyle on Salvino at Wellington competed by the May 8 deadline to earn scores for the squad likely to compete in CDIO5* Nations Cup competitions in Rotterdam, Netherlands or Aachen, Germany at the end of June.
The U.S. team of four riders and horses will be selected after the European shows for the world championships in Herning, Denmark in early August.
Adrienne on Salvino, Olivia LaGoy/Weltz on Lonoir, Ashley Holzer on Valentine, Alice Tarjan on Serenade MF and Katherine Bateson-Chandler on Alcazar are among those entered for the Global event this week that ends the winter circuit of seven CDIs in Wellington this year.
As many as eight combinations are likely to go to Europe. Leading the current standings is Steffen on Suppenkasper, whose competition schedule in California has been curtailed because of an equine herpes outbreak in the state. Adrienne on Salvino is ranked second, Charlotte Jorst on Kastel’s Nintendo third, Ben Ebeling on Illuster van de Kampert fourth, Jennifer Williams on Millione fifth, Alice Tarjan on Serenade sixth with Ashley Holzer taking the seventh spot on Valentine and eighth on Havanna that she is scheduled to compete at the World Cup Final in Leipzig, Germany April 6-10.
“I didn’t want to risk anything,” said Sabine who has a reputation of placing the health and fitness of her horses as the top priority and that led to her abandoning her campaign for a place on the U.S. team that also earned silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games.
Sabine expects to show Sanceo at the World Cup event in Temecula, California May 5-8, a 35-minute drive north of San Marcos, a San Diego suburb, where she now makes her home.
She came for this year’s Wellington season as she did in 2020 and again in 2021 when the Games were delayed to make the Olympic team of three rider and horse combinations and went on to place third in the team medal-deciding Grand Prix Special with a performance that was also lauded as superb by television audiences around the world and the equestrian media.
Sabine developed Sanceo from a youngster and went to the World Young Horse Championships as a six-year-old in 2012. In 2015 the duo competed at Small Tour in Europe before being selected for the Pan American Games team that won gold in Toronto.
Seeking a start on American teams requires what Sabine calls “critical” timing, more so than for Europeans. The U.S. regards exposure at top events on the other side of the Atlantic and before judges that will be at the major championships as vital. So U.S. riders need to campaign early–such as at Wellington in winter–to be included on the squad for Europe after which the teams will be selected. In Germany, for example, team qualifications are at Balve in early June followed by Aachen four weeks later.
