Wentz Olympic High for US

By Staff Report September 5, 2012

Jonathan Wentz wound up the highest-placed U.S. contender at the Paralympics, placing fourth at the Sept. 1 Grade 1b Individual Para-Dressage Championship by riding NTEC Richter Scale to a 70.348.

Wentz (Richardson, TX) drew the second slot in the order, and his score of 70.348 kept him in medal contention until the second-to-last rider, Pepo Puch of Austria, nudged aheadto Bronze. As it turns out, Wentz’s fourth place finish was the best among any U.S. Equestrian Team athlete at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Donna Ponessa was the lone U.S. representative to compete Sept. 4 on the last day of Para-Equestrian Dressage at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. Riding Desert Rose, she finished eighth, on a score of 70.75.

Two days earlier she bested that finish, coming in sixth on Desert Rose in the Individual Championship Test for Grade 1a riders, although their score was actually lower (69.20).

Grade 1a riders are the most significantly impaired.

Rebecca Hart (Unionville, PA) and Lord Ludger suffered a similar fate – riding high for most of the Grade II Freestyle Test only to be beaten back to fifth late in the game. She rode the Oldenburg gelding, owned by team chef Missy Ransehousen’s mom Jessica, to the music “Classical Gas,” producing an active Freestyle―with an added degree of difficulty by including lateral work―and a score of 73.25.

As a team, the USA placed a very competitive seventh overall, among 16 teams. Great Britain took Gold, Germany Silver and Ireland Bronze.

Wentz and Richter Scale came close to winning a medal at the 2010 at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. As they continued their Paralympic prep, Wentz made it to the Top 10 on the FEI World Rankings, where he stayed through the 2012 show season.

Following Thursday’s Team Test, Wentz knew he would need to increase the tempo and improve his walk tour on the 18-year-Shire cross gelding owned by his trainer Kai Handt. He was able to do both but suffered slightly in the trot work for pushing the pace just farther than what was needed.

“[Thursday] we got hit for being too conservative but then we went too much the other way and hit too hard on the accelerator and got way too wobbly in the trot work,” Wentz said. “The walk work finally scored the way we were hoping but the trot work hurt us.”

Wentz was pleased that some moves that have proven difficult for the pair in the past were among the highlights of the Saturday test. “The walk work, the turn on the haunches and the halt,” he said, listing high points. “It’s hard to start with a 65 and move up to a 70,” he said, reveling in the achievement.

In the Freestyle, Ponessa (New Windsor, NY) rode Wesley Dunham’s 9-year-old Oldenburg mare to a medley of Broadway show tunes. The pair upped the difficulty in their test by including trot work, which she said helped keep Western Rose’s attention and helped her maintain a more forward walk.

“Rosie’s a really smart mare and she gets bored sometimes with walking. Because the walk has no natural impulsion to it, I can feed off some of that because she’s using her back end. That actually makes her walk a lot more forward and more impulsive,” Ponessa said. “The trot was placed in those spots for that reason she also has the most effortless trot.”

It was Ponessa’s first time riding for the U.S. “I don’t know what adjective would describe the experience. It’s just been more than I ever could imagine. I knew it was going to be great but just not this great.”

Rounding out the U.S. contingent was Dale Dedrick (Ann Arbor, MI), also competing in Grade II. Dedrick finished in 10th place on her own Bonifatius. For the first (team) test, the 14-year-old Hanoverian gelding was quite unsettled in the Greenwich Park atmosphere. However, by their third test, the Freestyle on Monday, the pair had gelled, performing a fluid round to the music of “Kitten of the Keys.” Like Hart, Dedrick increased the difficulty of the test by including lateral work. They scored a 69.15.

“It’s lovely music and it makes it easy for me to just relax and let the horse trot,” Dedrick said, adding, “I think he likes it too.”

The riders went through their paces for a Ground Jury of Kjell Myhre, Sarah Rodger, Gudrun Hofinga, Freddy Leyman and Anne Prain.

 

 

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