T&T in­ter­na­tion­al rid­er Mariel Lanser, rid­ing Mi­ramis, pro­duced the high­est score at the T&T Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion-host­ed FEI World Dres­sage Chal­lenge, to cap­ture the Cham­pi­on High Point tro­phy af­ter an­oth­er stel­lar per­for­mance in the pre­lim­i­nary adult class.

The event was held at the Sad­dle Val­ley Sta­bles, San­ta Cruz, on Feb­ru­ary 22.

Lanser, whose con­sis­ten­cy was ev­i­dent at the re­cent­ly-held tri­als, took first spot with a score of 63.19 per cent.

Mean­while, Hadley Ra­hael, a stand-out ju­nior took the re­serve Cham­pi­on High Point tro­phy, rid­ing on Zeus in the pre­lim­i­nary ju­niors class. She fin­ished with a 62.76 per cent mark.

The high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed World Dres­sage event was held in the pres­ence of two lead­ing four-star FEI in­ter­na­tion­al judges, An­ders Sucks­d­off of Fin­land and Ger­man Elke Ebert. This was the sec­ond event both judges over­saw in T&T.

A to­tal of 14 rid­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in both team and in­di­vid­ual events in five dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories.

The glob­al FEI com­pe­ti­tion is di­vid­ed in­to 12 ge­o­graph­i­cal zones, five per­for­mance lev­els and two age groups- 12-15 years and 16 years and over. The lev­els are Prix St George, ad­vanced, medi­um, el­e­men­tary and pre­lim­i­nary. T&T falls with­in Zone 10, along with Bermu­da, Cay­man Is­lands, Bar­ba­dos, Haiti and Ja­maica.

The pur­pose of the World Dres­sage Chal­lenge is to al­low de­vel­op­ing coun­tries to com­pete in an in­ter­na­tion­al eques­tri­an even in their own coun­try, as trav­el­ling with hors­es is both dif­fi­cult and ex­pen­sive.

The lo­cal team se­lect­ed for the event com­prised of Lanser, Patrice Stollmey­er on Monte Car­lo, Mar­garet Auer­bach on Cas­sius CKS and new-com­er Brynn Eng­lish on No­bil LX.

The judges were im­pressed by the high cal­i­bre of the lo­cal hors­es and rid­ers. This even af­ter the nu­mer­ous chal­lenged faced by the sport in T&T.

As in the past, the judges ex­pressed the need for more lo­cal dres­sage com­pe­ti­tions to raise the lev­el of con­fi­dence and ex­pe­ri­ence for lo­cal rid­ers.

In the In­di­vid­ual events, the pre­lim­i­nary adult class was won by Lanser, with Adelle Stollmey­er in sec­ond place on Au­dac­i­ty to Hope, and last year's team mem­ber, Olivia Xavier-Har­ford in third place on Out of the Blue. In the el­e­men­tary adult class, Heather Ra­hael rid­ing Zeus took the lead with a score of 61.76 per cent ahead of Nico­la Cha­toor-Grainger on Un­bri­dled Dream with 61.42 per cent in sec­ond place. Third place went to Stollmey­er (Patrice) and Monte Car­lo with a score of 60.61 per cent. The ad­vanced class was won again this year by Auer­bach, but on a dif­fer­ent horse- Cas­sius CKS with a score of 60.58 per cent. In the medi­um class, Stollmey­er (Patrice) on Clau­dio took first po­si­tion.

The very youngest rid­ers took part in the pre­lim­i­nary ju­niors class. The top two spots were se­cured by Hadley Ra­hael, first on Zeus, and she came sec­ond on Wait­ing at the Front.

Michelle Sab­ga-Aboud, rid­ing in her very first in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion, came third in this cat­e­go­ry on Take Over.

For the ben­e­fit of the lo­cal rid­ers, the es­teemed judges con­duct­ed a clin­ic at each of the in­di­vid­ual sta­bles, to con­tin­ue the rid­ers' de­vel­op­ment in the art of dres­sage.

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