Monday June 21, 2004

Robert Dover and FBW Kennedy Sweep All Four 2004 Olympic Dressage Trials

Klaus Balkenhol Looking Forward to Athens

U.S. Dressage Coach Klaus Balkenhol is looking forward to Athens. Gunter Seidel translated, “He's very happy with the results. It is an international caliber show so he was expecting those kinds of scores really right before the Olympics if you want to be competitive in an international sport like this. It's very good to have a very big show with these kinds of results for American Dressage. It was a great audience that we haven't seen that much. He hopes that we will all keep our form for Athens and come home with a good medal and that no judge will look past our good riding, our good performances. He gives credit to Debby and Brentina who are making very good progress here and looking excellent. He hopes all the other horse and riders will show up well in Athens and the whole world is going to talk about the American dressage riders.

Debby McDonald, who has already been named as a discretionary selection to the Short List for the Athens team, summed up her short list teammates as “pretty awesome, an exciting team to sit here with, we're going to come out with a strong team at the end and hopefully bring a nice medal home.”