Dressage
Masters Championships.
What a difference a year makes!! After a forecast of doom
and gloom and a nail biting weekend the team breathed
a sigh of relief when the Weather Gods blew the clouds
away from Hickstead blessing the whole week with glorious
sunshine.
So surrounded with smiles and sunbathers what better way
to start the first day of the Dressage Masters Championships.
Kicking
off these championships on Monday were the Advanced
medium riders and resulted in a win for ex Young
Rider Hannah Butcher and Saiko STV.
Hannah has produced this lovely Dutch horse with her
mother and showed some really superb work to take this
class by a margin of just over one percent, from Holly
Fortin on Hibiscus Pavarotti who’d travelled down
from the Midlands region.
Both Small tour and Large Tour
Championships started with their first rounds
on Monday with the Prix St Georges being headed by Daniel
Watson who was being chased by Daniel Timpson. In the
Large tour last years champions Carol Parsons and Giddy
got off to a flying start in the Grand Prix with an
excellent score of 67.92%.
The largest class of the day however was the Novice
Championships which saw some incredibly high
scores the highest of these going to Wayne Rodwell with
Cristoph Himself, from the Buckinghamshire region, just
pushing Emily Stanford on Korenbloem Vincitomnia into
reserve champion position.
Tuesday
brought the music sections of the large and small tour
with the leaders from Monday fighting out to become
the overall champion. The intermediaire I freestyle
saw climbing scores with Watson triumphing over Timpson
in the battle of the Daniels. Daniolo pulled out all
the stops for his rider and danced his way to a score
of 71.75% to take the overall championship.
Reigning Champion for Large tour Carol
Parsons and her british bred mare Giddy hung on to her
title for a second year with a solid performance in
the Grand prix freestyle to score 68.75%.
The Intermediare II Championships
completed the advanced classes for this year and saw
a win for Tessa Fielder and The Court Jester, who qualified
from Sheepgate in the Lincolnshire region, the with
a very respectable mark of 64.15%. Suzanne Lavandera
on Keystone Walentino were just pipped into Reserve
Champion position.
Both the Medium and Elementary
Championships were also decided on Tuesday with
competitors in both classes needing a super score to
be in the top three.
Elissa Butcher took the Elementary Championship with
a smashing test on the aptly named Dream or Reality
and becoming Reserve Champions, the very reliable combination
of Sarah Williams and Jazz II.
The final pair to become Dressage Masters Champions
of 2008 were the victors of the
Medium Nicola Ashton and Happy Diamond who kept a cool
head on a hot day to romp home with a mark of 69.46,
over 2% above nearest rival David Rumsey on Tessa II.
By Wednesday
everybody had relaxed into a routine. We were really
beginning to enjoy the show (and the weather!) and were
all looking forward to the start of the British
Young Horse Championships.
As always we were not disappointed!
Prestige Italia have very generously continued their
sponsorship of the 5 year old classes at both National
and International Levels and the first of 2008’s
Champions came in the form of Darryl Thicket and the
elegant Warlocks Charm. They impressed the judges Mette
Lubke Assouline and Michel Assouline just a tiny amount
more to beat Henrietta Cheetham with Tennesee by only
0.8% to become 5 year
old National Champions
scoring 81.80%.
Henrietta also qualifyed in the International 5 year
old section for the championship final on Saturday and
taking the prize of a fabulous saddle given by sponsors
Prestige being the highest place non sponsored rider.
British Young Horse National 6
year old Champions of
2008 was the outstanding stallion Valegro ridden by
Charlotte Dujardin receiving an incredible mark of 91.6%.
Valegro just pushed last years 5 year old Champions
Garry Williams and Showmaker into second place with
a score of 84%.
The semi finals of both the Prestige 5 year old International
Class and 6 year old International class had their semi-finals
on Wednesday with the top 6 in each of these tests going
through to Finals on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Charlotte and Garry reversed their results from the
National Final with Showmaker topping the International
semi finals with just over 90%. For the 6 year old semis’
judges Paul Fielder and David Hunt gave Leah Beckett
on the lovely mare Rockabella the edge over Henri Rouste
and Faustino.
With the temperature going up every day so the competition
hotted up to match.
CDIO International
Thursday
was the first day of international classes with the
Junior
team test being headed by the sole Dutch entrant Nienke
Meijer and her lovely chestnut Firefly and the Young
Rider team test going
to British Anne-Marie Perry and her new ride Aristo.
A large field for the CDI
Small tour saw a win for
Britain’s Nicky Barrett on the stunning stallion
Faberge 50 who squeaked in above Gemma Green and Showtime
by a margin of less than 0.5% to win on a big score
of 69.90%
Nicola Jourdain had a great start to her Hickstead campaign
with a first and second in the CDI
Grand Prix at 3* level,
Sancerre having the narrowest of edges over St Swithens
this time with one score of 65.33% and another of 65.12%.
Friday saw
a new class topper in the Juniors, this time for Great
Britain, with Sophie Wells scoring nearly 69% to take
the Junior Individual
with a beautifully professional test on the KWPN gelding
Touchdown II. Pippa Hutton took second in this class
with Amandeus 320.
Anne-Marie Perry and Aristo stayed at the head of the
class for the Young Rider
Individual test achieving
67% but with Solo Bachorlette and Emily Cousins only
0.5% behind.
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The
CDI 3* Small tour
continued with Nicky Barrett again heading the quality
field in the Intermediaire I with her syndicate owned
stallion Faberge 50. Nicky reached 69.4% this time but
with Dutchman Sander Marijnissen less than 1 percent
behind on his ride who is also coincidentally called
Sander.
Sander Marijnissen ended up having a fantastic day as
he also took top place with his other ride Moedwill
in The Berkeley Group
CDIO nations cup Grand
Prix and helped the Dutch team to record a win against
the British team. Sander reached a huge score of 70.16%.
Richard Barrett with Alcatraz were the combination able
to get the closest to him with 67.58%.
The rest of the Dutch team consisted of Anne van Uytert-
IPS Lucky Times, Leida Collins-Strijk – On Top
and Petri Bax – Oriento. The GB team were made
up of Richard, Wayne Channon – Lorenzo, Judy Harvey
– Fitzcarraldo and Henriette Anderson –
Astonish.
Saturday
dawned with another fine day being promised. The Juniors
took the centre stage of the International arena early
in the morning for their final class – the Freestyle
to Music. Sophie Wells, who was also eligible
for the paralypic team for Beijing, rode a lovely test
to win her second class in 2 days on Touchdown II.
The British continued
to have a good day with both Nicola and Nicky dominating
their tours. Nicola Jourdain finished with a double
win on Sancerre in the Grand
Prix special. FEI rules dictated that she could
not take her second horse through to the Special so
Nicola took the opportunity to ride St Swithens as a
guinea pig rider before the CDIO Grand Prix Kur on Sunday.
Nicky Barrett just could not be beaten in the CDI
Small Tour completing a hat-trick of wins on
Faberge 50, this time in the Intermediaire
I Kur. Sander Marijnissen with Sander again being
pushed into second position.
The Prestige British Young Horse
International 5 year old Finals gave us a real
glimpse of the future at lunchtime. 6 horses qualified
for this and the winner emerged as Henri Rouste with
the very expressive chestnut Faustino. Reserve champions
and the winner of the semi finals was the mare Rockabella
and Leah Beckett.
With a great day of competition behind us everybody
was looking forward in anticipation to the Gala Evening
and keeping their fingers crossed that the forecast
showers stayed away til the wee hours.
No-one was disappointed. An Equine extravaganza was
promised and that is exactly what was delivered. From
the Showjumping Dressage Challenge in which we saw riders
of absolutely top drawer quality including two who were
on their way Hong Kong – Mark Todd and Micheal
Whitaker and all of the 11 riders entertained us in
a way only they could. Hilarious antics coupled with
breathtaking ability over fences and beautiful horses.
Becoming a firm favourite with the audience was one
of our German visitors, Marcus Doering riding one of
the outstanding Warendorf State stud stallions Contini.
Also joining us for our entertainment and amusement
- The Stallions of Substance. This family display team
really pulled all the stops out to give us a super show,
polished and cheeky. Riding to ‘Here come the
Girls’ Siobhan and Anne-Marie admitted to having
been the most nervous they’d been in years ‘
..Because this is HICKSTEAD!!!’
The ever youthful and incredible popular John Lassetter
kept the atmosphere in the arena bubbling over with
his hysterical display of ‘Another Look at Dressage.’
Along with Char Lassetter and ‘friends’
Curly Wurly and Golden Wonder they gave us a wonderful
insight into how NOT to do dressage!
Bringing up the end of a fantastic evening Hickstead
were extremely proud to present, all the way from Germany
just for us, an elite selection of stallions from Warendorf
State Stud. Stud director Susanne Schmit-Rimkus introduced
to us, with great detail, 4 of their top class breeding
stallions – Dresden Man (4y/o) Ehrenmann (5 y/o)
Riccio (7 y/o) and Laureus (9 y/o). These are the most
stunning horses, real true examples of excellence and
surely what all breeders in this country should be aiming
to produce and also use on their mares.
Bringing the evening to a conclusion with an extraordinary
display of horsemanship and humor all his own and also
from the Warendorf Stud, was Georg Frerich and rare
breed German cold blood stallion Hurrican. Hurrican
and Georg showed us that dressage was not only for warmbloods
and that the Germans have a sense of humour too!!
And so on to the party – all that remains to be
said is that there were some very sore heads in the
morning. Never let it be said that dressage riders don’t
know how to have a good time!!
Sunday
promised to bring us the highest quality of dressage
of the whole week and all were duly impressed.
Starting the morning session we saw the second hat-trick
by a British rider of the show. This time Anne-Marie
Perry and Aristo were the victors with the Young rider
tour finishing up a great week with a final win in the
Freestyle.
The CDIO Grand Prix Special saw a
first win of the show for Petri Bax on her ride Oriento.
Petri saw off compatriot Anne van Uytert and IPS Lucky
Times in to second place with a great score of 68.24%
to take the Kampmann Preis sponsored class.
Lunchtime brought the climax of the British Young Horse
International Championships with the final judging of
the top six 6 year olds. Last years runner up of the
5 year old sections, the stunning stallion Valegro,
ridden by Charlotte Dujardin emerged as the victorious
6 year old this year. They just pushed Liz Diguits with
Vortuyn into second, the position she held in last year
Breitspark.
So, to the very last class of the Hickstead CDIO 2008.
The CDIO Grand prix Kur ended up being a small but very
select class. Sander Marijnissen and Moedwil presented
a masterclass in style and softness to win with a score
of 72.6% over Leida Collins-Strijk with On Top.
After the show the judges overall
comment was that, although the classes may have been
small the quality had been superb and a absolute pleasure
to judge. I don’t think anyone would disagree
with this.
A fabulous week was had by all comers – spectators
and competitors alike and we can’t wait to see
you all again next year!!! |
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