Dressage-News

OCALA, Florida, May 27, 2023–The partnership developed between Katherine Bateson Chandler and Haute Couture was on display Saturday in winning the CDI3* Grand Prix Special for a double victory at the World Equestrian Center.

Katherine of Wellington, Florida and the 11-year-old KWPN mare scored 73.085% in only their second international competition since Haute Couture was acquired from the Netherlands early last year after Dinja van Liere took the horse to the 2021 European Championships. The win in the Special came a day after claiming the Grand Prix.

The results are expected to put Katherine in contention for the U.S. squad to be selected to compete at the Rotterdam and Aachen CHIOs next month.

“I’m super thrilled with my test,” said Katherine. “I watched my video from yesterday in the Grand Prix and knew what I had to improve on. I felt like she rose to the challenge. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a feeling like that in the arena before. She’s amazing.

She was so in front of the leg. All dressage riders are always looking for that really flowing, in front of the leg feeling. She was 100 percent there for me. Every correction I made she was right there for me. I felt like the weaknesses that I had yesterday I didn’t have today, which was my main focus. I corrected what I didn’t love from yesterday. I couldn’t be more thrilled.

“I know everybody says they have a special horse, but she is extra special. She’s so intelligent. She’s such a show horse. She knows exactly what’s going on all the time. She knows when to turn on, when to turn off. She’s like a human kind of intelligence, which can work for you and against you. That’s in our learning curve of figuring her out.

“Today she was completely on my side and fought for me every step of that test. I was honestly almost in tears at the end of it. No matter what my score was, that feeling is something else. It’s a high like you can’t believe, when you feel like it’s your friend and your partner but she still respects me.”

Haute Couture, owned by Jennifer Huber and Katherine, is the successor Alcazar, the KWPN gelding that is now 18 years old but also competing here, that has been Katherine’s main mount for a decade including on American teams in nine Nations Cups, seven in Europe.

Katie Duerrhammer, on the U.S. team with Quartett at the world championships last year, was runner-up on the 12-year-old Westfalen gelding Paxton on 71.489%.

Lehua Custer also of Wellington and F.J. Ramzes, American-bred 13-year-old KWPN gelding, was third on 69.766%.

Results:

CDI3* Grand Prix Special

Rank	Competitor	Score	E	H	C	M	B
1.	Katherine Bateson Chandler (USA) Haute Couture	73.085%	74.362	71.170	74.894	73.298	71.702
2.	Katie Duerrhammer (USA) Paxton	71.489%	69.574	68.617	73.085	71.596	74.574
3.	Lehua Custer (USA) F.J. Ramzes	69.766%	65.638	71.809	71.277	71.809	68.298
4.	Jan Ebeling (USA) Jubi’s Tenacity	69.659%	67.872	70.106	70.532	70.106	69.681
5.	Anna Marek (USA) Fire Fly	68.574%	67.234	68.085	70.426	68.723	68.404
6.	Kerrigan Gluch (USA) Mejorano HGF	68.298%	70.426	68.723	66.170	67.340	68.830
7.	Benjamin Ebeling (USA) Indeed	66.702%	65.000	66.064	69.149	67.128	66.170
8.	Kevin Kohmann (USA) Inshallah	66.660%	67.447	66.489	66.596	66.170	66.596
9.	Virginia Yarur (CHI) Ronaldo	66.000%	64.255	65.426	67.340	66.809	66.170
10.	Nancy Smith (USA) Eragon VO	65.702%	64.468	65.745	66.489	65.745	66.064
11.	Tiago Ernesto (POR) Hobbit Interagro	65.404%	65.532	65.213	67.021	65.426	63.830
12.	Patricia Ferrando (VEN) Elvis	65.106%	65.106	65.851	65.532	65.957	63.085
13.	Mikala Münter (USA) Skyfall	64.766%	63.511	63.404	64.574	66.064	66.277
14.	Rakeya Moussa (CAN) Davidoff V.H. Trichelhof	64.277%	62.660	62.021	65.426	66.277	65.000
EL	Bianca Berktold (USA) Imperial	eliminated
Find details on Equestrian Hub