If Lauren Hough needed any proof that Casadora is a fighter, she’s got it now.  Today, March 22, after two rounds of the selection trials for the World Equestrian Games, Hough and Casadora sit tied for first with Margie Engle and Quervo Gold.  And all this just five days after Hough discovered that Casadora was running a fever of 105.4 degrees and battling a viral infection.

Thanks to round-the-clock nursing from Hough and her staff and veterinarians, Casadora recovered sufficiently to jump to the top of yesterday’s Round 1, with just a time fault.  And the game chestnut mare rallied again today to turn in one of the only four clean rounds over an extremely tough track built by Leopoldo Palacios.  “I was most nervous about the first round.  I rode her this morning, and she felt like herself, so I thought all was well,” Hough said.

Yesterday’s Round 1, held—as all of the rounds will be—at noon on the grass Internationale Ring at the Wellington, Fla., WEF showgrounds, yielded no clean rounds. Palacios built a track designed to emulate the initial speed round of an international championship, and set the time allowed critically tight.  Only three horse-rider combinations left all the rails up, and they all collected one time fault in the process—Hough on Casadora, Engle and Cuervo Gold, and Nona Garson on Languster.  Three jumped within the time allowed, but with a rail—Anne Kursinski on Roxana, Schuyler Riley on Ilian, and Kim Prince on Couletto K James.

Only Engle and Hough could duplicate their dominating performances today, as they each added clear rounds to their cumulative scores to share the overall lead in the trials.  Garson and Languster collected eight faults today with two rails, but that 9-fault total puts them in a three-way tie for third in the standings.  Engle, on her second horse, Hidden Creek’s Wapino, jumped a four-fault round today to add to five faults from yesterday.  And Molly Ashe, aboard Neuville, turned in an impressive clean round to keep her first-round score of nine faults intact. 

After them, there’s a two-way tie for sixth—Jeffery Welles on Armani and Robin Sweely on Qarco v’t Merelsnest—with 10 faults apiece.  Kursinski and Roxana and Riley, on Ilian, both picked up eight more faults today, and lie tied for eighth with 12 faults total. 

Engle is thrilled with Quervo Gold’s performance.  “I always felt like he was a good horse.  He’s very scopey, though he’s not the quickest horse in the world.  He’s probably as scopey as [her 2000 Olympic mount Hidden Creek’s Perin, but then again, Perin is in a whole other class than anything I’ve ever ridden.  Time will tell with this one,” she said.  She’s only been riding the flashy chestnut gelding for a little more than a year, and “I haven’t had a chance to show him much,” said Engle. 

Engle and Perin’s owner, Mike Pergament, chose to leave Perin at home for these trials.  “Perin’s done a lot of trials—at this point, probably as many as Perry Mason.  To put him through another five rounds in five days didn’t seem necessary.  At this stage of the game, he has nothing to prove to us,” she said.  They asked the WEG selectors—Frank Chapot, Mike Endicott, Lisa Jaqcuin and alternate Eric Hasbrouck—to consider Perin for a wild card spot on the WEG short list, but “they couldn’t give us any kind of consensus about a decision,” Engle said.

Riders in the trials are competing for spots on a 10-horse short list.  The top six on the list will be the top six from the overall standings after the five rounds of the trials.  Then, the selectors have the option of naming four horse-rider combinations to the list subjectively.  Before the trials even began, they exercised that right by naming 2004 Olympic gold-medal teammates Beezie Madden, on Authentic, and McLain Ward, on Sapphire, to the list and granting them a bye from the trials process.  The 10 short-listed riders will be split into two teams and travel to Europe to contest the Super League Nations Cups, after which the chef d’equipe, George Morris, and selectors will name the final five-rider team for the WEG, held in August in Aachen, Germany.

Only 24 horses started the WEG trials process yesterday, and a few have taken themselves out of the running already.  Cody Baird and Poleander collected 41 faults in Round 1,and 17 today, to be well down the standings.  Georgina Bloomberg and Riviera had turned in a 7-fault total in Round 1, but a difficult triple combination was their undoing today.  On their first approach, they left from a long distance to the A element, and Bloomberg pulled out from the B element.  On their second attempt, they cleared the triple bar at 7A, but Bloomberg pulled out again.  Candice King pulled Coco Cabana up today after the gray mare had pulled several rails on the first half of the course.

Palacios’ course asked every question of the field.  The tough water line came early, at fences 3, 4 and 5.  From an imposing Swedish oxer at No. 3, riders galloped in five or six strides to the open water, and then had to negotiate a bending right-hand turn in six or seven strides to an airy white vertical set over liverpools.  A triple combination came next, with a daunting triple-bar, two strides to a square oxer, and then four very tight strides to a plank vertical.  Another tough triple, with airy colored rails, came at the end of the course, and broke a few hearts. 

The action continues tomorrow, March 23, with another round at noon.  The horses and riders rest on Friday, but then jump the final two rounds on Saturday afternoon, March 24.  Check in here to find out who holds up to the tests.

Standings after Round 2 of the WEG Selection Trials
Rider/Horse                                                      Round 1   Round 2      Total
1T. Margie Engle/Quervo Gold                           1                  0                 1
1T. Lauren Hough/Casadora                              1                  0                 1
3T. Nona Garson/Languster                               1                  8                 9
3T. Margie Engle/Hidden Creek’s Wapino       5                  4                 9
3T. Molly Ashe/Neauville                                     9                  0                 9
6T. Robin Sweely/Qarco v’t Merelsnest           10                 0                10
6T. Jeffery Welles/Armani                                    6                 4                10
8T. Anne Kursinski/Roxana 112                        4                  8                12
8T. Schuyler Riley/Ilian                                        4                  8                 12
10T. Laura Kraut/Miss Independent                  5                  8                 13
10T. Beezie Madden/Desilvio                            5                  8                 13
10T. Christine McRea/Promised Land              5                 8                  13
13. Kim Prince/Couletto K James                      4                12                 16
14. Anne Kursinski/Lorenzo                                6               12                 18
15. Candice King/Tarco                                       5                 4                  19
16. Schuyler Riley/Nottingham                         10               13                 23
17. Lauren Hough/Clasiko                                16                 8                 24
18. Laura Kraut/Anthem                                      9                16                25
19. Georgina Bloomberg/Cim Christo             10               16                26
20. Robin Sweely/Discovery                             10               25                35
21. Cara Raether/Quilano de Kalvarie             9                 28                37
22. Georgina Bloomberg/Riviera                       7                 48               55
23. Cody Baird/Poleander                                 41               17               58
24. Candice King/Coco Cabana                      13                48              61