 |
| Fortissimo B |
I finished 1
st 2
nd and 3
rd
with my three five-year-olds at the East Coast Markel/USEF
Young Horse Selection Trials at Morven
Park in Leesburg, VA.
 |
| Victory Gallop |
Fortissimo won again today and he felt great; usually on the
second day the young horses get a bit tired, but my three really stepped up to
the plate. Fortissimo was especially fabulous. I’ve been changing my program at
home a bit and doing more trot sets and fitness work like Boyd does with his
eventers, which was great for today because they had more stamina than a lot of
young dressage horses and it worked out well for me.
 |
| Fortissimo |
 |
| Fortissimo with Camilla Van Leuve |
Fortissimo scored 10 in the walk, which is very exceptional
and exciting; it doesn’t get any better than that! He finished with 8.12 which
is an awesome score. His total score for the weekend was 8.0 or so and now he
has an invitation to the National Young Horse Championships in Chicago in August. The top 15 in the country
will go there, and anybody who would like to compete in Chicago should buy him because it doesn’t
have to be the same horse/rider combination that qualified! It’s a lot of fun
to compete there and he can be really competitive.
 |
| Benefactor with Melinda |
Benefactor was fabulous and he finished 2
nd
behind Fortissimo. The Young Horse test is a bit subjective like any test I
guess, it depends on what the judges like. I couldn’t be happier with Benny,
he’s a horse for the future and especially for my future and we were all happy
for him to do so well. He was reserve overall and also has an automatic invite
to Chicago.
 |
| Larry and Melinda with Benny |
 |
| Benny |
 |
| Fan Club! |
 |
| Sully |
Di Solitaire was also fabulous; he’s the greenest of my
5-year-olds and he came from Holland
just last year. This test has counter canter and simple changes and a lot of
hard stuff and he was really great, I had a great time on him. Anne and Mike
are wonderful owners and are in it for the long haul – they bought him to do
Grand Prix eventually and this is an excellent start to his career. He should
also be qualified to go to Chicago
but I’m only allowed to ride two horses so I really hope somebody buys
Fortissimo before then so that they can all go!
 |
| Rosa Cha W |
Rosa was fabulous too, she was first on at 8am in the
Developing PSG Qualifier, also to go to Chicago.
I’ve been trying to get her to have more cadence in her work - she’s a
quick-thinking horse and needs to take a deep breath and settle down a little
bit. She was a little bit tense in the canter and still has plenty to improve
on, but she won with 68% in front of Jane Weatherwax and Jeannie MacDonald who
are both high level judges. All in all it was an extremely successful weekend!
-Silva
Coverage from Dressage-News.com
