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2001
European Dressage Championships
2001 World Championships for Young Dressage Horses
Young Canadian Dressage Horses Shine at World Championship
Verden,
Germany---Canada fielded its largest team ever of young
dressage horses to the FEI World Breeding Championships
held Aug. 9-12, 2001, where 68 of the world’s top young
dressage horses gathered form 14 different nations to
battle for world rankings.
 The
four-horse team of five and six-year-olds was comprised
of Tom Dvorak of Hillsburgh, ON, aboard Fortissimo,
a five-year-old Hannoverian gelding owned by Alyson
Carpenter, Leonie Bramall based out of Hunxe, GER, on
Boticello 2, six-year-old Hessen stallion owned by Hans
Jurgen Niepelt, Evi Strasser of St-Adele, PQ, and her
horse Quantumtyme, a six-year-old Oldenburg gelding,
and Jon Costin of Puslinch, ON, riding Rebel Rockstar,
a six year-old Belgium warmblood gelding owned by Rebelwarmbloods.com
and Nicole Van Doorne.
The
World Championship was comprised of two divisions- one
for five-year-olds and the other for six-year-old horses.
The competition consisted of two qualifying rounds with
a final for each group with the top 15 horses in each
division, based on the combined scores of their two
qualifiers moving on to the final. The FEI dressage
test for five year olds, is the equivalent to Basic
IV/Medium I level, and FEI test for six year olds is
similar to Medium II.
Dvorak
and Fortissimo finished tied for 17th in the first round
and tied for 19th after the second qualifier. The pair
finished 20th in the world for five-year-old dressage
horses. “It was a great experience for the young horses,”
noted Dvorak. “We have quality dressage horses in Canada.”
In the first qualifier for six-year-olds, Bramall and
Boticello 2 were ranked sixth, Strasser and Quantumtyme
were tied for 11th, and locked in a three-way tie for
19th was Costin and Rebel Rockstar. The second qualifier
placed Bramall in fifth, Strasser in a tie for eighth,
and Costin moved up to a three-way tie for 12th place.
Bramall
and Strasser moved into the final round of competition
where Bramall and Boticello 2 finished ninth in the
world for 6 year olds, Strasser and Quantumtyme were
awarded 14th. Costin and Rebel Rockstar placed 17th.
“The
fabulous owners paid for the opportunity to show case
these great young Canadian horses,” mentioned Costin.
“We demonstrated that our quality is up there with the
rest of the world.” Dressage comes from the French word
dresseur, meaning ‘to train’.
Dressage
is an equestrian sport combining athletic ability with
physical grace of the horse. Originally, it was used
to train horses for battle in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Riders now perform tests, containing a series of compulsory
technical movements, which are each marked on a scale
of zero to ten by a panel of three to five judges. Dressage
can be likened to figure skating, in it’s elegance and
has often been referred to as dancing on horseback.
Like skating, dressage also has a musical freestyle
where the rider designs their own choreography incorporating
the compulsory technical movements to their choice of
music. The key to achieving a high score is for the
horse to demonstrate expressive powerful and harmonious
movements while the rider’s aids or cues are hardly
noticeable.
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2001 E.C. / 2001 W.C.Y.H. Index
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