Dressage News Notes - Brought to You by Back on Track Products

Dressage News Notes for the week of January 9-13, 2012! Lots of news this week in International Dressage! The World Dressage Rankings are out and the top spot is held by Adelinde Cornelissen and Jerich Parzival! The World Dressage Masters Palm Beach is approaching and the line up is ever changing! While the competition has lost both Totilas and Salinero, other stars are headed to sunny Florida including our own Steffen Peters and a couple of Great Britain's superstars! Tinne Vilhelmson is developing a new freestyle with mega composer Cees Slings and you can see a video including helmet cam! Dressage4kids is hosting its 10th Annual Weekend Educational Program with great speakers, lectures and opprotunities.

The Florida show season is ramping up with lots of action! The Wellington Classic Dressage Challenge I is complete and The World Dressage Masters Palm Beach 5* is rapidly approaching (held in conjunction with the Wellington Classic Sunshine Challenge). Elsewhere in the Sunshine State we have the Ocala Winter Dressage in Ocala and the International Horse Sport Blue Hors Dressage Premiere in Loxahatchee. California is also lucky to have the weather to host a winter circuit and they will have the Dressage Getaway in Thermal.

Great Britain and Germany are clearly the dominate forces in the World Dressage Rankings for 2011, but the top spot is held by Dutch rider Adelinde Cornelissen. With her top partner, Jerich Parzival, Adelinde won the top spot by a strong margin of 213 points (2739) over the new 2nd place holder Carl Hester and Uthopia (up form 4th with 2526 points). Isabell Werth has the honour of having not one, but two horses in the top 10 with El Santo NRW in 8th and Warum Nicht FRH in 9th. Our top ranking American is Steffen Peters who holds 16th place with Ravel. See the top rankings here!

Horse & Hound has a very interesting look into the process of creating an international freestyle with a video of composer Cees Slings working with Sweden's Tinne Vilhelmson and Favourit. The freestyle, titled "It's Broadway" will debut at the World Dressage Masters in Palm Beach, FL later this month. What is really interesting is the helmet cam view from the saddle!! See it here!

Speaking of the World Dressage Masters Palm Beach - Totilas and Matthias Rath will not be able to attend the CDI-W 5* event according to his co owner Paul Schockemöhle. Totilas had sustained an injury during training which has taken some time to fully heal and he is just back in light work. It is in the best interest of the stallion that he be given the time to properly return to work and the trip to the U.S. is just too much to expect. Read more here...

However....Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro will be in attendance making their first trip to America and Carl Hester will make an appearance as well but not with dressage star Utopia but Fiona Bigwood's Wie Atlantico. The 13 year old gelding has only been with Carl for about a week and will be the first time out as a pair. Fiona is expecting her third child and Carl is keeping him going in the meantime. Read more here!

There is a lot going on lately for the youth of American Dressage! The Emerging Dressage Athlete Mega Clinic was recently held in Florida with Robert Dover (http://www.dressagedaily.com/article/emerging-dressage-athlete-mega-clin...) giving a Horsemastership Week to top youngsters in dressage. Now Dressage4kids announces their Tenth Annual Weekend Educational Program which will be held later this month in Woodbury, CT. Check out all the great speakers, lectures and learning opportunities!

Seems it is a bad time for some of the important breeding stallion of Europe as many have succumbed to the inevitable process of aging. This time it is the KWPN stallion Democraat who was euthanized at the age of 27. Democraat was both a competition horse in dressage under Anky van Grunsven as well as jumping up to 1.40 m. Democraat was approved for Hanover, Oldenburg, Rheinland, Westfalia and all other Southern German registries. Read More Here!