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Monday, June 30, 2008

Olympic Selection Trials for Dressage at the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Festival of Champions

Steffen Peters and Montango Unveiled New Freestyle at 2008 Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Festival of Champions

Steffen Peters and Montango unveiled their new freestyle during the Intermediaire Championships and it clearly worked taking them into the reserve champion position. "I got a tiny bit ahead of the music. My last movement on the centerline was the two tempis and I was a little ahead of the music, so I went on the diagonal and then did another serpentine to use up a bit of time. That made the freestyle a bit difficult," he said.

When asked the most difficult part of the freestyle, Peters said it was "the three tempis and the two tempis. There are a lot of them. There are certainly more than in the I-1 test and I make a left turn, I go on the diagonal and then I make a right turn. Those two movements are quite difficult and then the four pirouettes at the end with the half-passes in between. You have to stay competitive and degree of difficulty is important."

Peters and Montango, 14-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding owned by Mary Keenan, rode their freestyle to a mix of Italian music chosen with the help of Terri Gallo. Having now ridden the freestyle in competition, Peters said he will be making a few adjustments. "I need to take a good look at the timing of the piece. You start out a freestyle and sometimes you ride it a touch more conservatively. But then you do a championship and you have to go for it a little bit more and that's the reason I was a tiny bit ahead of the music. So I will adjust the timing a bit, probably by shortening the canter music at the end."

Shawna Harding, on the other hand, plans no changes in her music despite the fact that some judges have told her they aren't too keen on the rock music she uses, which includes ZZ Top, Queen and AC/DC. Attempting to be diplomatic Harding said that "the more mature judges don't quite think it's appropriate for dressage, but that's the way it's going when you look at what riders are doing in Europe." Harding said that adding an "edge" to the music might help make dressage more popular for spectators.

For the first two days of Intermediaire competition, Harding and Come On III, a nine-year-old Danish Warmblood gelding, stood in second place. She doesn't blame her choice of music for the fall into third. "Today he just wasn't on his game. He was not quite with me in the beginning. It was just little things that happened and that kind of opened the door for every body else to move up, like Steffen."

Harding wasn't the least bit disappointed but rather felt proud to have performed so well up against such tough competition. "I'm sitting between two Olympic riders," she said looking at Gibson and Peters beside her in the press conference. Gibson leaned over, gave her a hug and said, "You're doing just fine."