Saturday April 5, 2003

2003 Pan American Games Contenders: Yvonne Losos de Muniz

Yvonne Losos de Muniz – Freestyle Challenge

USA ‘O’ Judge Axel Steiner agreed that the judges seemed to fall in love with Yvonne. “Yes, she was very successful at this show,” he said, but added, “She was OK in the St. Georges. She took the advice that some of the judges wrote in the comments that the horse was a little bit too tight through the neck and the topline in the St. Georges, and she rode the horse much better in the I-I.” Judge Steiner has observed Yvonne ride earlier in her career in the Dominican Republic and stated, “She’s much better now. She’s improved greatly from what I’ve seen, so her coming here to the States and training and competing certainly must have paid off. She’s done a good job. And she’s also attacking the tests a little bit. She rode it with more energy, which was a nice change.” But he did not have her placed first in the kur. “Strangely enough, in my opinion, the freestyle was qualitatively not as good as the Intermediaire was, which is a little bit unusual. But I-I freestyles are a little bit difficult to pull off. You really have to go for it to really shine because there’s not that many difficult things that you can do, so you really have to put your soul into it and ride with extreme confidence to really pull off a good I-I freestyle. She has to get a little better.”

Yvonne also assessed her freestyle as being in need of work. “I’m not happy with it,” she said, pointing out that since the time when the freestyle was created for Inatana Las Marismas, the mare’s gaits have changed. “They’re more through, more powerful, so I’m missing the music. We just have to match the music up a little bit. I’ll just change the tempo of the music.” Terry Ciotto Gallo of KlassicKur created the tracks for Yvonne, who enthused, “She’s fabulous. She does all our music.”

Now that dressage fans in Florida know her and come to watch her ride, Yvonne said that the attention is, “Fabulous. We’ve put so much into this, my husband and our whole group here. Everybody works so hard. It’s been a real long struggle to get here but it goes to show – hard work pays off because we’re getting the results now.”

Yvonne’s husband Eduardo was at the Zada/WEF CDI to see her three wins. “I’m very happy,” he said. “It’s been such a long road for us. It’s so hard. We live in the Dominican Republic and we have our son back home with me, the daughter is up here with her. Everybody is back home. It’s really difficult.” The couple’s son Toshi is 11 and daughter Sylvia is three. “I fly up every weekend and then Toshi has to stay with his grandparents. She’s away from home for months – since January – and she’s going to stay until June.” But the proud husband also noted, “The main thing is – we’re happy. We’re happy to see that hard work, the old cliché, does pay off.”

The couple obviously has mutual goals and a fun partnership, which shows in their rapport. Yvonne was born in Nigeria, but moved to the Dominican Republic when her parents built a hotel there and she met Eduardo. “My husband owns a hardware store so I got good deals,” she joked.
Eduardo interjected, “Deal of a lifetime!”
And Yvonne concurred, “Wasn’t it, dear!”