Derosa Daily
On The Scene at the FEI Las Vegas World Cup for Dressage and Showjumping

The Perfect Mixture

For the last day all the ingredients were there – the sure footing, the beautiful flowers, the large crowd, the wonderful entertainment and the horses. And the final 27 that entered the ring gave the audience a spectacular show, displaying the skills that had earned them the honor of representing their countries at this prestigious event.

The competitors jumped two different courses with the challenges happening around the arena. There were high verticals and wide oxers followed by tight turns. In the first course the riders galloped from fence #1 to fence #2 and then did a quick u-turn back to a fence right off the corner to another galloping line. And that’s the way most of the courses were designed because of the size of the arena. The horses had to have the ability to move across the arena for the longer galloping lines but then come right back to very tight turns. You had to have a horse that was agile, willing to listen, could think and act quickly and be balanced enough to deal with the technical aspects this course required.

In most cases the combinations claimed most of the faults and so it was with the first round of this final course. A triple combination along the long side of the ring lost poles four times at 7A, five times at 7B and six times at 7C. The added dimension of not having much time to set the horses up off the corners made the combinations even tougher. You had to have your horse pulled together and on target or you could easily get in trouble in the combinations.