Heath Ryan Wins GP Freestyle at Dressage Nationals

Australia’s dressage elite have filled the placings in the Pessoa PDS Grand Prix Freestyle at the 2014 Saddleworld Australian Dressage Championships led by Heath Ryan and Regardez Moi who added yet another Freestyle win to their list of titles.  

On their way to victory the formidable duo scored 72.38 to narrowly defeat World Equestrian Games 2014 representative Mary Hanna who partnered with her 13 year old KWPN gelding Umbro to achieve a score of 72.23.  Brett Parbery and DP Weltmieser rounded out the top three scoring 70.90.

Addressing the crowd after the competition Ryan said he suspected this would be Regardez Moi’s final Freestyle appearance at the Nationals. 

“Regardez Moi is 19 years of age. He knows his way through the test so well, he’s doing wonderfully well but I can’t imagine that we’ll manage to make it to the Nationals again next year. I do think this will be one of our last performances.

“By the time we have finished (the test) he is huffing and puffing but he just loves it.”    

A prelude to Saturday’s main event was a quadrille competition (an artistic ride created by a team of four horses and riders) between a team comprising members of Australia’s Dressage Committee (Kerry Mack, Roger Fitzhardinge, Elizabeth Owens and Julia Battams) and a team of Young Rider Development Squad members (consisting of Courtney Barbera, Morgan Duell, Victoria Stuckey and Libby Hulin). In the inaugural competition it was the young riders who triumphed with their performance to popular Australian songs ‘Down Under’ and ‘You’re the Voice’ voted more popular by the enthusiastic audience which were asked to judge the performances.    

Earlier in the day Nicole Tough and Borsato scored 71.29 to win the IRT Advanced Freestyle coming in ahead of Mark Arthur and Show Master who finished a close second on a score of 70.79. The Medium Freestyle was won by Dion Stokes and Royal Oak 11 while the Agnes Banks Equine Clinic Intermediate I Freestyle was won by Gina Montgomery and Stedinger after the pair received a tidy 71.33. Victoria’s Georgina Foot and Bellaire Cannavaro were second in this class, scoring 70.68.

Finishing second in both the 3.2 and 3.3 Championships awarded Daniella Dierks and Fursten Hit the Elementary Championship. The New South Wales rider was also finished third in the overall standings with Solo Feliz, behind runner-up Emma Flavelle and Cabaret C.

Elloise Devlin continued her winning streak at the Championships adding victory in the Young Rider Individual CDI-Y to her win in Friday’s team test. Devlin won the class with a score of 67.84 and was followed closely by fellow Queenslander Annie Simmons and Florett on 67.61. Young Riders will contest their Freestyle on Sunday.   

Saturday marked the final day of competition for Para-Equestrian riders and Anne Skinner finished on a high by winning the Grade 2 Freestyle after receiving a pleasing 70.00 from the judges. Hannah Dodd was the winner of the Grade 3 Freestyle and Caitlin Radford capped off her winning weekend by taking out the Grade 4 Freestyle.   

Results