A young horse shows to great advantage, and a schoolmaster gets back in the ring.

Jan Brons had very different goals for the two horses he showed at the Gold Coast Dressage Association Opener Festival CDI-W in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 23-25.

Teutobod was there to strut his stuff. The 9-year-old Dutch Warmblood (Lord Sinclair—Touch Of Class) made his Intermediaire I debut just over a year ago, and now Brons can really go for it with the talented, young gelding. “Teddy” won the Prix St. Georges (71.21%) and the Intermediaire I (69.57%) in the CDI.

But Jourdan, an 18-year-old Dutch Warmblood (Elmshorn—Signorita D), was returning to the Grand Prix ring after a long lay up for an injury, and Brons was just happy to get out there and ride the Grand Prix again.

“Jourdan’s not as fit as I’d like for him to be, but we take the opportunity to go in, and I always learn something from him,” said Brons. “At his age, it’s not for him anymore. It’s totally for me.”

Brons, Wellington, Fla., placed first with Jourdan (63.40%) in the Grand Prix for the Special and second in the Grand Prix Special (62.37%) behind Shelly Francis and Dominion.

“In the Special, I had an unfortunate mistake in the twos,” said Brons. “He thought that coming off the right he should do ones. The rest of the test was pretty good, but that cost me a lot in front of five judges.”

He blamed his warm-up with Jourdan for the mistake. “Normally I would have just done two-tempis in the warm-up, but I had done the two-tempis, and he was beautiful, so I added a line of one-tempis. My big mistake was not doing another line of twos just to make sure I had them. He went in the ring thinking one-tempis.”

Brons said that he wouldn’t make that mistake again and laughed about his clever horse.

“At home I rarely practice the whole test, because he’ll figure out where things are happening. I only do bits and pieces, and then I change and do something else. He knows really quickly where things are happening. And then there’s almost no way of stopping him from doing it,” he explained.

Brons has owned Jourdan for the past four years and finished him at Grand Prix.

“He’s always been a very interesting horse. He’s never been the easiest to deal with, but at the last couple of horse shows he’s been a model citizen. He used to be very spooky, and now he’s a fun horse to ride in the ring. You can really ride,” he said.

Although Brons doesn’t have any big goals with Jourdan this year, he’s enjoying the chance to keep riding the Grand Prix test as he prepares Teddy for the level.

“You get out of the Grand Prix ring for a while, and you forget how hard it really is. Then it takes you a month or two to get yourself back online. It’s the height of the season here, and I’m trying to stay on top of the game and get better myself,” he said.

In The Right Direction

Teddy does all of the Grand Prix work at home, but Brons is more interested in confirming the work at home rather than rushing him into the show ring.

“Everything is coming along just great,” he said. “Toward the end of this year, maybe in the fall, we’ll do the I2 and the Grand Prix and be really good at it. I could fumble my way through it right now, but he could use the six months to do the big CDIs.”

Brons hopes to qualify Teddy for the Collecting Gaits Farm/U.S. Equestrian Federation Intermediaire I Championship this year.

“When I got him he was doing first and second level things. Now he’s pushing the Grand Prix,” said Brons. “That’s very exciting. Especially since he’s got as good a brain as he has and is as talented as he is. I’ve been showing him for two full years, and he trusts that whatever we’re going to do is going to be just fine. I can just warm him up for the class and go in. I’d like to thank Carlene Blunt, who owns Teddy, for all her support.”

Brons was especially pleased with Teddy’s Prix St. Georges test at the CDI because he felt no need to be conservative.

“I went full blast and took all the risks,” he said. “That worked beautifully. There were no areas that I thought needed to change. He’s totally reliable in the ring and totally focused on what he’s supposed to be doing.”

Pop Art Pulls Off Another Win

Reliable certainly describes Ashley Holzer’s Pop Art. The 12-year-old Dutch Warmblood (Amsterdam—Prinses) was hard to beat in 2008, and he’s started off 2009 with the same strong Grand Prix performances. Holzer won the Grand Prix for the freestyle (70.29%) and the freestyle (76.25%).

But Holzer’s weekend didn’t start the way she might have wished. Under the weather with bronchitis, she had to depend on “Poppy” to help her through the Grand Prix test.

“This weekend I was really sick. I got on him, and he went in and did his job,” she said. “The first day in the Grand Prix I had mistakes in the twos and the zigzag. He knows the ones are usually off the left.”

Because Holzer wasn’t feeling well, she said she was less clear than usual with Poppy about what to do next, and he tried to perform the old Grand Prix test instead of the new one.

“He tried to correct me,” she said. “He’s so smart that he knows his program, and he’s so happy to go in and do his program. He was doing his thing and was surprised by the new test. I got him into the freestyle, and he clocked it off clean as whistle. So I’m pretty happy.”

Holzer, who rides for Canada but winters in Florida, said she’s learned a lot about managing Poppy after a somewhat disappointing Olympic experience in Hong Kong in August.

“I think the problem at the Olympics for my horse was that we were at the facility for so long. He’s a show horse. He gets to the show, puts on his show shoes and goes in the ring,” she said. “We’d been in Hong Kong for so long that he didn’t think it was all that special. He wasn’t spooky or scary. I suffered from not having that extra oomph that I usually have in the show ring.”

According to Holzer, Poppy’s normal routine includes lots of turnout time.

“He doesn’t live a protected life as a show horse,” she said. “When he was on the road for so long, that wasn’t an option. It didn’t do me any favors at the Olympics. I’ll find a field next time. I think I matured as a show rider. It’s really important to keep their routine as normal as possible, and that wasn’t an option for me in Hong Kong.”

Holzer went to the CDI-W with the plan to get another qualifying score for the FEI World Cup Dressage Final this year. She currently leads the North American standings with an average score of 76.16 percent as of Jan. 27.

“I don’t want this year to be a tough year. I want it to be a fun, relaxing year,” she said. “I’m excited by the World Dressage Masters competition [p.8]. I think it’s great that the Europeans are in Florida. I think it will be the start of Europeans coming to Florida a lot. It’s so much better than the freezing indoors in Europe. I’m looking into doing the Masters at Hickstead, [Great Britain], this summer. But right now I’m focusing on the World Cup.”