Every country hopes for a star to rise out of the masses of combinations out there competing, particularly in the years before major championships. The United States is no exception and, just like we were thrilled when Steffen brought out Ravel to bolster our chances for a medal alongside our great team horse, Brentina and a slightly greener but very strong Mythilus, we knew that the days of having 4 horses consistently getting well over 70% was in the past. So with less than 2 years to the World Equestrian Games on our home turf in Kentucky, I’ve been very concerned that I haven’t been seeing any rising stars to take the places of our retired greats. But then came this week and the Palm Beach Derby and guess what? They’re here!

Among the horses and riders we’ve already known were our stronger candidates were a couple of new and exciting faces at Grand Prix. Now understand that I am not saying these are by any means the only horses with great potential in the U.S. (I only watched one day of the show and only half the GP horses there). And I didn’t get to see the winner of the first GP, Michael Barizone’s Olympus go, although I did see some fine piaffe and passage from him the day before.

Who I did see was Lauren Samis on Sagacious and Shawna Harding on Comeback 111. Sagacious is simply fantastic! Even though he is very green and still unreliable in piaffe, he has the makings of an individual medal horse and once his piaffe is sure, I predict he wil be unstoppable. Comeback 111 is also still very green, as are both riders at this level, but I predict that with a more powerful and rhythmic passage, he will show the quality of a young Corlandus.

So I am truly excited and I’ll be travelling around the country giving clinics and symposia this year and on the lookout for more rising stars. If they are out there at any level, I want to see them!

Cheers!
RD

After 2 1/2 decades of attending the Palm Beach Dressage Derby, I find myself with mixed feelings. Its not that I don’t really love and admire the folks who trielessly go that extra mile to ensure the Derby comes off without a major hitch, year after year. Or that the show, with our beautiful weather over the last few days, had been a continued top proving ground for our best horses to compete at a great venue.

The truth is that I just keep remembering back to the early and mid 80’s when a small group of friends of Gisela and Howald Pferdekamper produced a show on their farm which was very elegant, had great prize money, the likes of which we had never seen, and pulled Europeans like Jo Hinneman, Daniel Ramsier, Karin Schluter, and others each year to our town to compete. They would bring a few horses along with their top mounts to sell and end up having fun and a very lucrative winter season away from the frigid European winters. What could be better?

Well. 25 years later, everything about our shows seem for me to be formulaic. The great parties are gone, although I certainly enjoyed Mary Phelp’s inspection party which benefitted the Equestrian Aid Foundation. But the prize money has shrunk from then till now, one doesn’t see the Europeans coming to contest their horses against ours, the grounds look the same year after year and at the end of the day, the bar has lowered substatially as opposed to being raised at just about all the shows for all the disciplines.

I wrote a post last month called, “What’s Wrong With Our Shows?” For some reason, I got not one comment, even though what I wrote I thought quite controversial. Maybe you should read it again. Maybe also this isn’t the right time to be complaining about a lack in our horse shows. At least there are the shows, while so many other businesses are failing and services are falling off. I just keep thinking back to the shows like the Derby, Devon, The IEO show at York, PA, and the PVDA shows. They were truly exciting and had electricity in the air, despite the utter lack of quality in most the rides.

We need to reinvigorate our shows, bring in more prize money, produce them more like show business and make our riders into stars with house-hold names. I so appreciate everyone in the business who works so hard just to keep the shows out there and available for our riders. We all have to lend a hand to bring about the change we desparately need to raise the bar for the future of our competitions.