Steffen Peters and Legolas. File Photo © 2015 Ken Braddick/dressage-news.com
THOUSAND OAKS, California, Sept. 12, 2015–Steffen Peters and Legolas posted a personal best score of 81.325 per cent Saturday night to capture the World Cup Grand Prix Freestyle. The personal best result was the second of the day for the rider who earlier logged the best score yet on Rosamunde in the Grand Prix.
The performance by America’s No. 1 combination and ninth ranked in the world was the highest by far in North America this year and came in the fifth of 12 World Cup qualifiers in the U.S. and Canada seeking to qualify two riders and horses for the Final in Gothenberg, Sweden at the end of March.
Günter Seidel of Cardiff, California on Zero Gravity also posted a personal best Freestyle score of 77.600 per cent for second place while Elizabeth Ball also of Cardiff and her Liaison were third on 66.540 per cent.
The best qualifying score before Saturday night’s competition was 73.175 per cent by Canada’s Jacqueline Brooks on D Niro. The average of the two best scores determine the two combinations to be invited to the Final, the annual individual world championship decided by the Freestyle.
Earlier Saturday, Steffen and Rosamunde, the eight-year-old Rhinelander gelding, logged a personal best score of 75.780 per cent to win the Grand Prix qualifier for the Special scheduled for Sunday.
Legolas is a 13-year-old Westfalen gelding owned by Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang’s Four Winds Farm that Steffen has been competing at Grand Prix for 4 1/2 years including riding for United States at the World Games in 2014 and the Pan American Games a month ago, winning both team and individual gold medals as well as a ticket for the American team to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro next year.
The career record for the duo, ranked No. 9 in the world and the reigning U.S. Grand Prix champion combination, has been remarkable.
Steffen and Legolas have finished first in 29 of 49 CDI starts in California and Florida in the United States and throughout Europe. The pair’s previous highest Freestyle score was 80.925 per cent in California last March, followed by 80.350 per cent at Munich, Germany two months later.
The horse’s only appearance at a World Cup Final, in Las Vegas last April, was a mix of elation at finding a solution in the highly charged atmosphere to Legolas’s noise sensitivity and heartbreak over elimination from the Freestyle over blood on the side of the gelding, apparently caused by a spur when Legolas reacted to a sudden burst of loud applause. As a result, Steffen who is known around the world for light aids and softness in riding, wears the bluntest spurs available.
Steffen is only the second American to win the World Cup, which he did on Ravel at Las Vegas in 2009. The other was Debbie McDonald on Brentina.
Results:
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