Driving
At the Southern Pines CDE in North Carolina, six advanced divisions gave the U.S. drivers plenty of opportunity to hone their skills for some o f the 2011 FEI World Driving Championships. In the Advanced Single Pony Divisions, Australia's Janelle Marshall won but USA's Maggie Sullivan was second and Doris Leacy was third.
In the Advanced Pair Pony division, Wendy O'Brien scored a victory over Jennifer Matheson which came down to a close competition in the cones. O'Brien ended up in front on the strength of her marathon performance.
Allison Stroud continues her domination of the team pony division in the United States with her team of grey mostly Welsh ponies.
The Advanced Single Horse division proved successful for Kate Shields, she bested young driver Jacob Arnold by less than a point for the win. Robin Groves was less than four points off the winning score in the most competitive division of the weekend.
Kathrin Dancer won the Pair Horse division as the lone entrant - and Joe Yoder won the Team horses. Cindy Jo O'Reilly also drove a Tandem pair (one horse in front of the other) in the Advanced Multiples Division.
Please see the Carolina Horse Park website for more information: www.carolinahorsepark.com
Jumping
In Paris at the Saut Hermes Horse Show in the Grand Palace Paris, top U.S. horses and riders scored major placings throughout the week.
Beezie Madden rode Coral Reef Via Volo to second in the Prix de la Ville de Paris. They were one of only two clear rounds in the 13 horse jump-off. Alvaro Mirand and AD Wibert Z took the top spot for Brazil. Laura Kraut and Dona Evita were eighth, after picking up four faults over the
short course.
In the Le Saut Hermes, a 1.60m pairs class, Madden and Via Volo joined forces with Richard Spooner and Cristallo to storm to second place. They added one time faults over the four round of jumping, to give Finland's Nina Fagerstrom and Canada's Eric Lamaze the win. Laura Kraut and Cedric teamed up with Pius Schwizer and Carlina from Switzerland to finish fourth. They had the fastest combined jump-off time, but Schwizer had one fence down in the process to relegate them to fourth.
Spooner and Cristallo were seventh in the big class on Sunday: the Grand Prix Hermès in a world-class field. Germany's Christian Ahlmann (on Taloubet Z) and Belgium's Rik Hemeryk (with Quarco de Kerambars)amazingly managed to tie for the win after both jumping faultless rounds in the jump-off and finishing on identical times of 40.71.
The pair split the 100,000 Euro first prize.
Complete results and more information is available here: http://www.sauthermes.org/
At the CSI3* Lummen in Belgium, Andrew Ramsay and Julia des Brumes were fourth in the CSI3* 1.40m class on Thursday. He was then second on Chocola Z in another 1.40m class later that day and was also fifth on Woitcek in a 1.30m class. Ramsay continued to pick up top placings on all his horses: he was also third in 1.40m class on Friday with Virginia.
On Saturday, Chocola Z was second for Ramsay in a 1.40 m class behind Brazil's Pedro Veniss and Born to Win. Cody Auer was fourth with Timo. Auer was fourth again in a 1.20m class with Watherspoon picking up four faults in jump-off that caused its fair share of faults.
Ramsay and Julia des Brumes were fourth again on Sunday in another CSI3* 1.40m class posting the fastest jump-off round but adding one rail to their final score. Ramsay was then second on Virginia in the final CSI3* class of the weekend. Cappucino was fourth for Young Rider Karl Cook in the CSI3* 1.40m class on the final day of the show.
Please visit: http://www.csiolummen.be/ for more information
For more information about the U.S. High Performance programs click here. To submit High Performance news, please e-mail: Joanie Morris.