By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
WELLINGTON, Florida, Jan. 10, 2024–Felicitas Hendricks of Germany rode her Drombusch OLD to victory on the opening Global Dressage Festival Friday nights under the lights Grand Prix Freestyle with American Adrienne Lyle on her Olympic mount Helix runner-up after re-starting the ride when the wrong music was played for some minutes.
Felicitas and the 14-year-old gelding were awarded 78.200% to pick up her winning record in Florida following the pair’s top rating on the 2024 winter circuit, a decade after first competing here as a junior rider.
Adrienne, based in Wellington, and the 13-year-old Helix that was her Paris Olympics U.S. team mount, scored 77.280% for the second attempt at the Freestyle that earned her the maximum 20 points as a North American competitor and moving her up as a contender for one of three places at the World Cup Final in Basel, Switzerland the first week of April. The recording error came on Adrienne’s third Freestyle and the first night competition for the horse, owned by Zen Elite Equestrian Center. The duo posted a personal best in the Grand Prix Thursday.
Tinne Vilhelmson Silfvén, the seven-time Olympian for Sweden and a long-time competitor in Florida, placed third on the 16-year-old Devanto for 75.515% for their popular “Puttin” on the Ritz” music.
“He just exceeded my expectations,” said the 24-year-old Felicitas of Drombusch. She is coached by German team championship rider Christoph Koschel, her uncle. She and Drombusch won the 2023 European Under-25 Championship.
“Every time, he just leaves his heart in the ring. I can tell that he’s very happy to be back. He was loving the crowd. He was a little spicy, but in a very good way.”
The main training she does at home, she said, “is very basic work, improving self-carriage, gaining more strength behind. I think that would be a process that would never really stop, but I can tell that it’s really benefiting the both of us. He’s gained a lot of strength, I think we can already show that in the ring.”
She plans to ride Drombusch in the Wellington Nations Cup that has been won by Germany the past four years and the top rated CDI5* on which she won the Freestyle last year.
Adrienne, the top ranked American rider with a record on Salvino, the now retired Grand Prix stallion that includes team silver at the Tokyo Olympics and the 2018 World Equestrian Games, said a new version of her music centered on 70s and 80s pop, had been updated for this competition. However, the earlier version was played and she stopped the ride midway.
“Because with the floor plan being submitted,” she said, “I obviously have to stick to the choreography I submitted. And I was not able to make that work with the first sheet of music.
“Everyone was super accommodating. And I’m very, very appreciative that they worked so quickly to upload or to get the right piece of music in there. And we were able to still complete it and finish it.
“Considering the unconventional start, I was really happy with him. I mean, OK, he got a little excited at the beginning, and it was a little off routine for him. So it maybe wasn’t our most polished or most powerful ride. But he still didn’t have any big mistakes. It’s his first time under the lights anyway. So this is all a new experience for us.
“I’ve actually been practicing a lot at home. We’ve been getting him out at night. We’ve been riding him in the outdoor arena in the dark. My girls are really good sports, and they all come. And they have speakers set around the arena. They’ve been playing applause music and doing all sorts of things to try to desensitize him to it. Because he is a very hot and sensitive horse.”
Kevin Kohmann and Devon Kane currently fill the top two places on the North American standings for the World Cup with three more qualifiers scheduled for Wellington and one in California. Canada’s Camille Carière-Bergeron is in third place with Adrienne Lyle and Geñay Vaughn tied for fourth.
Results:
