WELLINGTON, Fla.--Christopher Hickey won the FEI Prix St.George on Saturday, Feb. 19 at Global Dressage.
Chris Hickey on Valentin (Photo by Susan Stickle)There were 11 competitors in the open section of the Prix St. Georges class, where Hickey won with 72.794 percent on Valentin, a 10-year-old Swedish warmblood gelding.
Their consistent marks across the test gave them the win, just ahead of Adrienne Lyle on Nexolia Feodoro, who scored 72.353 percent.
Hickey of Wellington in the winter and Edgemoor, S.C., in the summer, was previously the trainer for Jane MacElree's Hilltop Farm in Colera, Md., where, while riding Hilltop-owned horses, Hickey won three USEF National Championships, a Reserve USEF National Championship, Gold and Silver Medals in the Wellington Nations Cup, and five USDF Horse of the Year titles.
Friday’s FEI Prix St. Georges class was won by Julie McKean on Fling For U, a 13-year-old Swedish warmblood mare, with a score of 73.823 percent.
McKena did well with the lateral work, scoring eight on both the half-pass to the left and to the right and were able to just edge out Vanessa Creech-Terauds of Canada on Daniel L who scored 73.529 percent.
Seven riders contested the open section of the FEI Grand Prix class, but it was Eliane Cordia van Reesema who excelled from start to finish on Codiak.
Codiak, a 13-year-old Rheinlander gelding, showed exceptional passage and pirouettes for marks of eight, which boosted his score with Cordia van Reesema to a 74.239 percent.
Second place went to Lisa Marriott of Great Britain on Valucio DH Z, who finished with 69.347 percent.
COMPETITION concluded on Sunday with another notable display from 2020 Olympic team silver medalist Adrienne Lyle who rode Fürst Dream, a stallion by Fürstenball OLD, to a remarkable score of 96.000 percent in the USEF Young Horse Test for 4 Year Old class.
Judges Sandy Osborn (USA) and Kem Barbosa were impressed with the trot and canter rhythm reflecting suppleness and natural balance.
On Friday, United States Paralympic Gold Medalist, Roxanne Trunnell on her Paralympic mount Dolton returned to the show ring for the first time since Tokyo.
She won both the Para Equestrian Team TOC and the Para Equestrian Individual TOC class.
Dolton, a 10-year-old Hanoverian gelding, scored 83.660 percent in Friday's class, and in Saturday’s test scored 80.714 percent, more than five points ahead of second place finisher Charlotte Merle-Smith who scored 75.293 percent on Guata.
“Dolton felt outstanding. He always is so relaxed on the Global show grounds that he gives me the feeling he really is enjoying what he does, and how the horse feels about his job is always a top priority for me,” said Trunnell. “I think the best part of my tests were the serpentines. Dolton is such a big horse that the serpentine really allows him to swing through his body and bend, plus he gets to really show off that drool-worthy, sexy walk of his.”
“It feels lovely going back into the show ring after such a period of time,” she said. “To have the exact same horse in the ring that I had prior to Tokyo is just awesomeness. He feels like he is ready to go out there and win another gold medal for his mom!”
“Dolton is such a cool horse in that he doesn’t react to his surroundings while I’m riding," she said. "He is just so in tune with me that I feel like a marching band could walk by where I’m riding, and he wouldn’t even react to that! The Olympics showed me that if something is potentially scary in his eyes, he is going to look to me on how he should react and trusts that I won’t put him in a bad situation.”
