Sunday February 8, 2004

Wellington Dressage Kur Day

Robert Dover And Rainier Win USET Grand Prix Freestyle

Starting off with a brassy "If My Friends Could See Me Now," Robert Dover and Rainier owned by Jane Forbes Clark wowed a standing room only crowd at the FEI ring today as they danced their way to victory in the $2,000 USET Grand Prix Freestyle, a Qualifying Competition for the USET Grand Prix Championship and the 2004 Olympic Selection Trials. The judges were tightly in unison on their marks: Lorraine MacDonald at H, 15.4; Maryall Barnett at C, 15.7; and Joan MaCartney at B, 15.65, for a score of 77.917%.

The 13-year-old gray Oldenburg gelding (Rolando x Figaro) showed powerful transitions including piaffe to extended trot directly back to piaffe on the centerline to start off the test. "That's a difficult thing for most horses to do,"said Dover. "The work in the canter is also quite difficult because the way the rules are now you can't just develop a pirouette out of a half-pass, so I had to go half-pass in canter to two straight strides directly into double pirouettes, directly into flying change at every other stride or every stride. I did one of each. The final pirouette in piaffe on the centerline is also a difficult movement."