Hartpury Festival and CDI – Friday

Written by Dressage Central // July 6, 2012 // News // Comments Off

Today was a busy one at Hartpury. There was a CDI PSG in the morning and a CDI Grand Prix in the afternoon, both outside in the rain while the Para Freestyle ran all day, inside in the dry!

There was a Press Conference with the Team members and demonstration tests ridden by Laura Bechtolsheimer and Richard Davidson. Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro competed in the Grand Prix and, while Carl Hester chose to leave Utopia at home, he contested and won the PSG on Arun Gregory’s Dances with Wolves.

The weather started damp and gradually deteriorated into a downpour by the end of the Grand Prix in the afternoon.
Up against the Brits in the CDI grand Prix were the best of the Canadians as well as some Irish team members and Luis Principe of Portugal.

Long time leaders were Ashley Holzer of Canada on the beautiful Breaking Dawn just ahead of Michael Eilberg and Half Moon Delphi. However everyone knew that second last to go was Charlotte Dujardin and the record breaking Valegro. Charlotte elected to warm up inside and only came out into the pouring rain with one horse to go before her. Valego was definitely on his toes and reactive. Charlotte managed to settle him well but there was still some tension in parts of the test. He spooked in the middle of the first medium trot and the walk was, to use a favourite expression of the judges, “fragile”. Still he settled more and more as the test went on for yet another 80+ score in very testing conditions. Well ridden Charlotte!!

Full results on the Hartpury website.