DressageDaily: 2003 Dressage at Equestrian Estates: Susan Dutta Is Learning from a Pro

Monday April 7, 2003

2003 Dressage at Equestrian Estates

Susan Dutta Is Learning from a Pro

With four horses competing this weekend Susan Dutta racked up a few points on her Pan-Am quest with Westside Lady DC and gained some valuable experience with her schoolmaster, Chalston DC, (Corde x Kokette), which she rode Hors Concours.

A 16-year-old Oldenburg gelding, Chalston DC, (“Charlie”), was purchased from Bianca Kasselman in Germany after a successful career including Bundeschampionat, European Young Riders Champion, and numerous Grand Prix wins in Europe.

“Charlie has taught me a lot about Piaffe/passage,” said Dutta, who is still developing a rapport with Chalston DC and noted, “You buy horses, not partnerships.”

While Dutta is enthusiastic over her trainer, Dennis Callin, she said, “They say the best teacher is a great horse, and this is so true.”

She explained, “If I ride correctly it’s all there. He teaches me how to ride the transitions and the trot extensions and he makes it fun. When I ride well, he goes well; he’s a good teacher. He’s so high quality that it doesn’t take much warm-up either; it’s 20 minutes from the barn to the ring. Since I can’t practice too much before I go in the ring it’s teaching me to believe in myself.”

Chalston Westside Lady, a Hannoverian mare by Westbury out of the Lombard mare Lamba, is ten this year and is really coming into her own. She placed third in the PSG USET/ Pan-Ams qualifier on Friday with 68.083% and ninth in the Intermediaire 1 on (66%), but her most shining ride of the weekend was in Sunday’s I-1 freestyle, also a qualifying test, in which she earned 69.375%. Dutta, who chose to start competing late this season, plans to take the mare on to Pinehurst and Raleigh to earn the rest of her qualifying scores.

“This is only the second qualifier of the season for her and she’s still wound up,” she said. “I held her back from the Pan-Am qualifiers to work on the Grand Prix movements and then had to ‘de-tune’ her for the Prix St. Georges, so there’s a a little more tension in her now."