©Terri Miller

By Media Release/Yellow Horse Marketing

Even though Steffen Peters' young star Rosamunde performed a Grand Prix Freestyle for the first time on Saturday, she looked like a seasoned veteran on her way to earning the unanimous win under all five FEI judges with an impressive final score of 77.750% at California Dreaming Productions' Festival of the Horse CDI 3*/Y/J/U-25 in San Juan Capistrano, Cal. Utilizing stablemate Legolas 92's recognizable David Bowie/Coldplay/U-2 music and demanding choreography, the Rheinlander mare affectionately known as "Rosie" (Rock Forever x First Lady by Fidermark, owned by Four Winds Farm) proved she was up to the challenge, including successful execution of double pirouettes, piaffe fans, and tricky transitions - all at just eight years old. In her inaugural freestyle effort, her score was just three points less than Legolas' performance the previous week at the Capistrano Dressage International CDI-W, which earned Peters a ticket to the Reem Acra FEI World Cup Dressage Finals in Las Vegas as the top-ranked competitor in the North American League. Finishing in second with 71.450% was Jan Ebeling aboard another up-and-coming star in FRH Rassolini (Hanoverian stallion [Rubioso N x Sweetheart by Silvano] owned by Vantage Equestrian Group LLC).

Peters noted that his intention in using the freestyle was not to make the performance a game of "who rode it best" between his two talented mounts.  "I chose to use Legolas' freestyle because I wanted to have another practice run before the World Cup in a competition setting - you can practice it at home but it's just not the same," explained Peters. "It's still a bit difficult for Rosie, but she embraced it and was so beautifully with me the entire time. She wasn't tired at all from these last two weeks of competing - she was as happy as ever, and I actually had to hold her back in the extensions a bit and say, 'not yet'. We had a little mistake in the one-tempis, but the two-tempis were improved even from Thursday's Grand Prix and her pirouettes were amazing, reminding me again of Ravel. [FEI judge] Gary Rockwell said to me after the class that he wasn't sure he'd ever seen a horse do half-passes as easily as Rosie, and that's exactly how she feels. You simply point her in the direction you need to go, and she just offers it. It's a wonderful feeling. Like I've said before, gravity is just a suggestion to her."

Peters noted that next on the calendar for Rosie is to join stablemate Legolas in Las Vegas, where her growing number of fans can look forward to a seeing her participate in a special dressage performance during the World Cup Finals.

Source: USEF