Affaire to Remember

By Staff Report March 13, 2012

Steffen Peters and Ravel wowed the crowd with another precision riding tour de force at the 2012 Dressage Affaire, March 8-11 at the Del Mar Horse Park. The duo took the blue ribbon in the $5,000 FEI Rancho Valencia Grand Prix Special, an Olympic qualifier, on Sunday, March 11, with a score of 80.289%.

Guenter Seidel and Fandango placed second with a 70.422%, narrowly topping Kathleen Raine and Breanna (70.400%).

Peters and Ravel, a 14-year-old Dutch gelding, also won the GPS on Saturday, with a score of 79.213%. The event marked the return to competition of the San Diego-based Sue Blinks, who was sidelined for a year due to health issues but showed she is back in top form. A 68.957% on Leatherdale Farms’ Robin Hood was good enough for second place, nosing them ahead of Seidel and Fandango, a new pairing for the Cardiff based rider, who earned a 68.234%. The horse, a 16-year-old Oldenburg gelding, is owned by Marie Meyers of Moorpark and the Napa Valley-based Toyon Farm, which is leasing him.

Peters also won the $5,000 FEI Rancho Valencia Grand Prix Freestyle CDI-W on Saturday night, riding Legolas 92 to a score of 78.225% in the horse’s first kur. The duo performed to the Coldplay-powered recording Peters commissioned for Ravel and had modified for the 10-year-old Westphalian gelding.

Both Ravel and Legolas are owned by Akiko Yamazaki of Los Altos, CA. The only other horse and rider pair competing in the Saturday night freestyle, a World Cup qualifier, was Jan Ebeling and Rafalca, who scored 74.800%, landing him a ticket to the Reem Acra FEI 2012 World Cup Finals in ‘s Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, April 19-22. The Oldenberg mare is owned by Ann Romney.

Peters and Seidel will be competing their Olympic hopefuls at Dressage Week at the Del Mar National April 26-29 at the Fairgrounds down the street. It was only Seidel’s second CDI-W on Fandango, which Toyon is backing in his Olympic bid.

“We are so pleased,” Meyers said. “Guenter is a genius of a rider. We’ve done two CDI’s in five weeks, and with these scores and two more chances ahead,  we’re pretty sure he’ll qualify for [the Olympic trials in] Gladstone [NJ].”

The tony Dressage Affaire event, beautifully mounted by Keenan Productions Events Inc., also hosted qualifiers for the Para Olympics, the USEF Young Rider and Brentina Cup Championships, the FEI North American Junior/Young Rider Championships and the Markel/USEF National Young Horse and Developing Horse Dressage Championships.

 

 

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