Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, Jan. 20, 2023–Morgan Barbançon of France rode Deodoro to a personal best score to win the Gold Coast CDI3* Grand Prix Friday in the French rider’s first regular horse show in America.

The two-time Olympian and the 12-year-old Westfalen gelding were awarded 71.239% that surprised the rider who has sustained several broken bones in being bucked off the horse she prefers to call “Lilo” when she found the horse to be unrideable.

Susan Dutta of Wellington, Florida and Don Design DC, a 13-year-old Hanoverian gelding, scored 70.891% for runner-up in the field in which five of the 10 starting combinations were European-based.

Anna Christina Abbelen, a European Championship gold medalist on six German teams from ponies through young riders as well as two individual golds, placed third on 70.109% on the 16-year-old Oldenburg gelding Sam Donnerhall.

The 30-year-old Morgan who is based in Switzerland but rode for France at the Tokyo Olympics and for Spain at the London Games, has competed once before in the U.S., on Painted Black at the World Cup Final in Las Vegas in 2015.

She came to Florida with three horses, Deodoro, Bolero and Habana Libre but left Sir Donnerhall II OLD, her top horse, at home awaiting a decision on whether Morgan will qualify for the World Cup Final in Omaha that, if successful, would be the fifth for the rider.

The performance by Deodoro made her happy, Morgan said, “but very unexpected with this horse.”

She got the horse when he was seven years old but said she did not know at the time that he had recently been gelded and was very difficult to handle. As a result, she was thrown off and sustained several broken bones.

“I had to suck it up,” she said. “I had a dangerous horse. It was just a nightmare.” The worst of it lasted about a year, Morgan said.

Even so, she said, “I absolutely adore this horse. He’s very special in his own way.

“It makes me so proud how he has stepped up, that he has got over his ghosts and says, ‘OK, I’ll do it for you’. That’s the feeling I had today. I just had a flowing forward feeling with him.

“I hope he’s my future–it’s between him and Habana. I’m preparing both for Paris.”

Morgan said she will compete Lilo extensively throughout the winter circuit at Wellington’s Global Dressage Festival to the end of March.

Results:

CDI3* Grand Prix