Sunday, February 5, 2007

Super Sunday at Wellington Dressage Bails Out Wash Out

Arlene Page and Wild One Win USEF Grand Prix Special, High Performance Qualifier at Wellington Dressage

Wellington Dressage (February 2-5), the first of three dressage shows at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, wrapped up today on a sunny Sunday under clear blue skies. It was a change from yesterday’s bad weather to good, and a dramatic difference in performance as well for Arlene ‘Tuny’ Page and Wild One, who finished a disappointing 10th in Friday’s USEF Grand Prix, but came on brilliantly today to top a class of seven contenders in the USEF Grand Prix Special, a High Performance qualifying class for the 2006 World Equestrian Games Selection Trials and the 2006 USEF National Grand Prix Championship. Page and Wild One, who are the reigning Reserve National Grand Prix Champions, claimed victory with a score of 68.800%. Charlotte Bredahl Baker, a member of the 1992 Barcelona Bronze Medal Olympic Team, aboard Komo earned second place with 68.733%. Pierre St. Jacques and Lucky Tiger, a duo that competed on the 2003 Pan American Gold Medal Team, was third with a score of 65.133%.

“I warmed him up smarter and it felt like I rode him in the ring a little bit more intelligently for him at this stage of the game,” said Page, explaining the difference between her performance in the Special on Friday, which earned 63.194%, and today’s jump to 68.80%. “He is a horse that needs to feel very, very confident within himself and confident on his four feet. He is so highly reactive in this situation. He has to be willing to relax and stretch down into the reins in a heartbeat, because if something happens outside the arena, he can be distracted.” She noted that her 10-year-old, 17.2-hand Hanoverian gelding looked at something outside the ring on Friday, “and then I couldn’t quite get him back.” To prepare for Sunday, Page used a strategy she knows works with Wild One. “I went out Saturday morning and very calmly asked him to piaffe deep or walk deep – just relax so that I knew that today if there were 25 blenders whirring or whatever, that he was instantly familiar with it. Today we had to go a little low because that’s what makes him calm. Our boy’s got a lot of fire.”

Page also stated that she’d met the goals she’d set for this show: to ride her hot horse a little more open and a little more freely. “He knows what to do and it’s time for the judges and spectators to see what’s extraordinary about this horse,” she said. “He is extraordinary in every movement. He has good piaffe/passage, good canter work, good pirouettes, good flying changes, good half passes – everything is good. But you have to go to the ring and show that. That was very much my goal for this show. My horse is very sensitive. He panicked for a moment two days ago, but today he just settled in and did the work. What I want from my horse is that every time he goes to the ring he feels safe and he feels confident.”