Dressage-News

May 12, 2025

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

Marcus Orlob is in Europe for up to three months developing his U.S. team mount Jane and JJ Glory Day, the younger developing Grand Prix stallion, while Olympic team mate Adrienne Lyle, the top ranked American rider, plans to stay home to focus on coaching her students and young horses.

Marcus focus is based in his former home city of Düsseldorf, Germany where he prepared the 11-year-old mare Jane with longtime coach Johan Zagers for competitions in Europe last year, including the Paris 2024 Olympics and the premier World Equestrian Festival in Aachen, Germany.

A major part of his plans with Jane in addition to competing at the Aachen CDIO5* Nations Cup include participation at national events in the efforts of owner Alice Tarjan and Marcus to overcome the horse’s nerves before crowds. During the winter circuit, Jane was exposed to events at Wellington International’s extremely large and busy Winter Equestrian Festival of jumpers and hunters.

“I take her out almost every day into the woods behind the stable where there is a lot of activities with runners and bikers and a big lake where she can look a lot,” Marcus told DRESSAGE-NEWS.com. And a CDI3* at Aachen next week, six weeks ahead of the CDIO5* Nations Cup and an hour from Düsseldorf, may be on the familiarization swing.

JJ Glory Day, a nine-year-old stallion also owned by Alice Tarjan, was reserve champion at Global Dressage Festival’s Lövsta Future Challenge for developing Grand Prix horses the final week of the winter season. In the past two years, Glory Day won nine of 10 starts at Small and Medium Tour CDIs.

He hopes to have lessons on Glory Day with Hubertus Schmidt, German Olympic and World Championship team gold medal rider, with ties to the United States as both a competitor and a trainer over several decades before returning to the U.S. about the end of July.

Adrienne Lyle, a three-time Olympian, said she and her students chose to stay home from Europe this summer to focus on training and  preparing for the fall show season in Florida.

She competed her Paris Games mount Helix at the World Cup Final in Basel, Switzerland last month following Global’s three-month circuit.

Her students include Christian Simonson who debuted Indian Rock at a national event in Wellington last month and has scheduled their first CDI Grand Prix, a 3*, at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala next week, and Katie Duerrhammer, who was on the U.S. team at the 2022 World Championships, and has a new Big Tour mount. She describes both horses as “exciting.”

“I want to take the summer for them to really be able to train and get to know them more and compete here in our home country,” Adrienne said.

A goal of Christian and Indian Rock, previously competed by Emmelie Scholtens on the Dutch team at Paris, is the U.S. national championships.

Adrienne also has “several very talented younger horses” owned by Zen Elite Equestrian Center, as is Helix and Indian Rock, “that I am very much looking forward to being able to train this summer and focus on their progression as well.”

Among the horses is Hussmanns Topgun, a nine-year-old gelding sired by Totilas that is competing at Prix St. Georges.

This is a so-called off year for the U.S. with no international team championships in which Americans can compete.

U.S. dressage is rebuilding after Olympic and World Championship silver medals in 2018 and at Tokyo with hopes to field a competitive team at the World Championships to be held in Aachen in 2026.

However, as the host of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the U.S. is automatically qualified for a team.