Ashley Holzer may not have had the biggest win of the Zada Wellington Equestrian Festival Dressage Classic on March 17-20, but she might have had the most meaningful one.

The Canadian team member rode Jornello to win the open Prix St. Georges on a score of 67.12 percent. But three years ago the 14-year-old Dutch Warmblood (he’s 7³8 Thoroughbred) was looking strong at Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire I, but a freak physical condition made it unlikely he would compete again.

“It was just after Port Jervis [N.Y.] that he started to go a little off in front,” recalled Holzer. “It was very strange–he wasn’t consistently off and we didn’t know what it was.” Her veterinarian couldn’t diagnose him conclu-sively, so they decided to rest Jornello while Holzer rode at the World Equestrian Games.

“I came back and went to take him out of his stall, and he fell down,” said Holzer. “He’s very high-strung, so I thought, ‘Maybe he’s so hyper he can’t control his legs and he’s tripping over himself.’ But I put him on the longe line, and he fell down again.”

Holzer worried about neurological damage, but her veterinarian still couldn’t give her a definitive diagnosis. So they shipped Jornello to Dr. Alan Nixon, an equestrian surgeon at Cornell University (N.Y.).

“They took X-rays, and he had a huge calcification on his back that was pressing on his spinal cord,” explained Holzer. “That’s why he couldn’t walk. He had no control over his back end.”

The surgery was a risky one, made more so by the fact that Jornello caught pneumonia when he was put under anesthesia for a dye test. Nixon put a metal plate in Jornello’s spine to immobilize the vertebra involved, but he predicted the horse would end up as an expensive lawn ornament if he recovered from the surgery.

It was two years before Holzer could even begin riding Jornello again, and then it was only at the walk, in April 2004. “When I called Dr. Nixon after the show and told him what the horse had done, he was flabbergasted!” said Holzer.

Jornello, nick-named “Ugly George,” will always be special to Holzer. “He’s one of my favorite horses,” she explained. “He’s such a character, and he’s a lot of fun to have.”

She couldn’t have been happier with his performance at Wellington, but she’s in no hurry to push him further. “He can go Grand Prix; he was a solid citizen before his injury,” she said. “But I’m leery of pressing him. A year ago I was riding him for five minutes at the walk. For now I’m just enjoying him.”

A Winner At Many Levels

Jornello’s comeback victory wasn’t Holzer’s only achievement of the weekend. She continued her streak aboard Pop Art, the 8-year-old Dutch Warmblood she co-owns with her father, Ian Nicoll.

She’s been consistently placing in the top three with him at Prix St. Georges and Inter-mediaire I this season in Florida, and she took both the CDI Intermediaire I freestyle (74.47%) and the Prix St. Georges (71.35%), as well as placing second in the Intermediaire I (70.65%) behind Michelle Gibson and Lex Barker (71.30%).

“That horse comes out every single, solitary time consistently,” said Holzer. “For as young as he is and as green as he is, it’s pretty impressive. He really took a back seat to the other horses until now.”

Holzer also rode her Dutch Warmblood stallion Gambol, winning the Intermediaire II (67.80%). “This was the first time that I really felt that he was strong in the ring,” she said.

The 10-year-old stallion (Gabor–Arella), owned in partnership with Diane Fellows, does double duty in the breeding shed. “I can breed him in the morning and ride him in the afternoon,” said Holzer. “He has a great temperament.”

Holzer, 41, also rode her Dutch Warm-blood stallion Imperioso, 15, to fourth (69.70%) in the CDI Grand Prix and to third (74.52%) in the freestyle. She plans to take Imperioso (Cocktail–Bonita) to Europe this summer.

Michael Barisone and Neruda had just returned from a European tour. This combination took the CDI Grand Prix Special (68.96%) after placing sixth in the CDI Grand Prix (68.29%).

Co-owned with Jane and Salo Suwalsky, the 10-year-old Dutch Warmblood is in his second year at Grand Prix.

“He’s done terrific from day 1!” enthused Barisone. “I’ve had wonderful horses, but this one has something about him that I’ve never encountered.”

Neruda qualified for the Olympic selection trials last year, but Barisone decided he was too green and that his time would be better working with team coach Klaus Balkenhol in Germany last fall and winter.

After scoring nearly 70 percent in European competitions, Barisone, 40, returned to his farm in Wellington, Fla., and rode in the CDI at the Palm Beach Dressage Derby March 4-6 but with mixed results.

“I warmed up completely wrong, and it’s not that he did anything horribly wrong, but I missed my canter tour,” explained Barisone. “You just can’t make points doing that.”

So Barisone went home, re-grouped, and spent some time reviewing the plan that Balkenhol had helped him create. They came out better than ever at the Dressage Classic.

“He was actually better in the Grand Prix than the Special, but I missed my changes,” said Barisone. “I came in to ride my changes for a 9, and it was too much power. But he got very good marks on his piaffe and passage, including six marks of 9.”

The ease with which Neruda performs piaffe and passage is one reason Barisone thinks he’s special. “Usually these are things that require development, and it takes some years to get the strength, but this guy has been into it from day 1 of his life,” he said.

While in Germany, Barisone focused on the basics of dressage with Neruda. “Klaus made me ride him rounder,” said Barisone. “He’s a very powerful horse, and he’s apt to make a mistake by putting his hind legs too far underneath and overpowering himself. We worked on teaching him how to deal with being this powerful horse and having the balance to deal with it.”

Neruda’s stay in the United States will be brief, because Barisone plans to return to Europe shortly. “I keep saying that I’m going to have this horse once in my life,” he explained. “That means he has to go to Europe, and he has to be seen and get his reputation there. Neruda is a horse for the future.”

Dover Continues To Dominate

In the CDI Grand Prix and Grand Prix freestyle, Robert Dover and Jane Clark’s FBW Kennedy continued their winning ways, taking both classes with scores of 74.87 percent and 76.95 percent.

Ever the perfectionist, Dover still wasn’t satisfied with his freestyle.

“I don’t feel quite in sync with it yet,” he said. “I’m going to open up some lines because he gets 9s on his flying changes in the Grand Prix, but because of the choreography it’s hard to open up his changes on the lines I’ve selected.”

In Kennedy’s freestyle, most of the flying changes are on circles, a difficult move that shows off Kennedy’s flair and versatility.

But that difficulty wasn’t adding up to higher scores. “You can do all this fancy choreography, and at the end of the day you’re still marked on nine two-tempis or 11 one-tempis, and the quality of the changes is more important than the choreography,” said Dover.

He had no complaints about his Grand Prix test, though. “When you can do a Grand Prix again and again with a score around 75, you think, ‘This is what it’s all about,’ ” said Dover. “To be on a horse that delivers that kind of test again and again is terrific.”

Now Dover must sit tight and wait to find out about the FEI World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, Nev. He’s chosen not to fly Kennedy out to California to contest the U.S. League Finals at the Festival of the Horse CDI in Burbank on April 1-2.

“I’m going to sit and hope and pray that I get the wild card the day after the show is over,” said Dover. “I have a lot of different things going on in my life that are complicated with my family and their health. The flights that were available for Kennedy to go to California made it even more complicated.”

He added, “It just didn’t seem like it was in the best interest of the horse, flying him to California, flying back, and then flying to Las Vegas. I just cannot be away for a month with the obligations that I have at home.”

Getting Better All The Time

Consistency in the Grand Prix is one thing that Catherine Morelli has been striving for with BeSe. The 12-year-old Dutch Warmblood is in his first season at Grand Prix and had struggled earlier in the season.

“Usually it’s the same with him when I move him up,” explained Morelli, of Wellington, Fla. “He doesn’t do that well, and then he gets better as he moves along and gains confidence and strength. It seems to be the pattern every time.”

They peaked together at the WEF Dressage Classic, winning the open Grand Prix (65.00%) and the Grand Prix Special (66.20%).

“We still have things we need to improve, but he can do all the movements, and he can do them very well,” she said.
Morelli, 61, has co-owned BeSe with Diane Rosenberg since the gelding was 8. “When I first got him he would just get rid of me,” Morelli said with a laugh.

“He would buck me off. If you moved the wrong way, he would panic or drop out from under you. He had a lot of different moves.”

But they slowly built a relationship. “I look forward every morning when I go out and see his face,” she said. “He has the most incredible eyes and face. He’s always eager to see you and do the work.”