Friday February 20, 2004

Dueck Continues String of Success at Florida Dressage Classic

Kicking off four days of dressage competition, February 19-22, at the 32 nd Winter Equestrian Festival, the Zada Enterprises, LLC Florida Dressage Classic featured 10 classes from Training Level through Intermediaire I today at the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club.

In the FEI classes, Canadian Shannon Dueck, 41, now of Wellington , FL , riding Korona topped a class of 18 with a score of 69.837%. Ashley Holzer of New York, NY, riding Imperioso placed second with 67.154%, and Colombian Dr. Cesar Parra of Jupiter, FL, earned third place aboard Leonberg, earning 64.959%. “I was thrilled with my horse,” said Dueck of her 12-year-old Dutch gelding.

“He was elastic and rideable. We've had issues with tenseness in the Wellington atmosphere before, so I was thrilled at how he handled it.” Dueck was especially pleased with the way Korona carried himself in the extensions. She admitted to one pilot error. “I need to learn how to count tempi changes! I'm not used to the I-II test and I did too many changes,” she said with a laugh. “Overall, he was great.”