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Dressage at Devon, one of the premier shows held annually at the historic Devon Horse Show grounds in Devon, Pennsylvania wrapped up yesterday after a fun-filled six days of very fancy prancing. While we tend to see a strong number of event riders frequently moonlight in the show jumping ring, it feels fair to say that we see fewer end up dabbling in pure dressage so it’s exciting to see a few familiar names from our eventing work wind up in the Dixon Oval this weekend!
One such event rider who has done much more than merely dabble in dressage is non other than five-star eventer Lainey Ashker. Over the past several years Lainey has developed a string of dressage horses and has competed through the Grand Prix level. This weekend she brought forward Ann Wilson’s 2014 Oldenburg Gelding, Zeppelin, (Blue Hors Zack — Hardenberg Donnerschwee) to contest the CDI1* Intermediate at Devon. They qualified for thefreestyle finale last night and scored rocking 71.033%, a personal best at the level, earning a fabulous third place overall with their Led Zeppelin themed musical freestyle. Who knew “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” pairs perfectly with an extended trot?!
And that’s not all — earlier this week we mentioned that Boyd Martin filled in for his wife, Silva, as a demo rider in the Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour masterclass, and now Boyd has shared some video highlights from his time with the Dutch Olympian in the Dixon Oval. We know Boyd as quite a brave rider (he does have a whole Noelle Floyd Masterclass on the subject, after all) but I think it’s a whole different kind of bravery to bring an event horse — he rode his own Commando 3 who just won the CCI4-S at The Fork last month — into an arena with stands full of pure dressage riders for a clinic! Well done, mate.
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