Angel Ozer and Loki had a scary start to their weekend at the Great American/USDF Region 9 and Southwest Dressage Championship show, but all worked out well in the end.

“We came down on Tuesday–an eight-hour drive [from Oklahoma City]–pulled him out of the trailer and he went down,” Ozer said of the 10-year-old, Oldenburg gelding. “He spent Tuesday night at the vet clinic on IV fluids. Wednesday I just walked him around. We went in Thursday morning and won the [Southwest] Grand Prix.”

After that win–with a score of 65.52 percent–the pair also won the GAIG/USDF Region 9 Grand Prix championship (61.04%) and were second (61.58%) in the Southwest Intermediaire II class. The show took place at Great Southwest Equestrian Center in Katy, Texas, Nov. 3-6.

This is Loki’s first year at Grand Prix, Ozer said. “He’s still a little green for the piaffe and passage.”

Ozer has trained the chestnut with a blaze and four tall stockings since she bought him in Germany as a 4-year-old. He’d been under saddle only three weeks at that point. He’s come along quickly since then, though. “He had two-tempis at [age] 5,” Ozer said. “When he turned 6 it took me three weeks to teach the ones.

“He’s special talented but spooky,” she added. “I had to be led into the arena when he was doing Prix St. Georges at 6.” At home he’s the prince of the barn, though, and pushes cows for a change of pace.

The pair head to Florida just after Thanksgiving, where they’ll show at Grand Prix. “I want to put together a Grand Prix freestyle,” Ozer said. “We’ll use the same music as his Intermediaire I freestyle, but his gaits have gotten so much bigger it needs to be remixed. Plus we get to add ones and lots more fun stuff.”

Ozer also won a class of third level, test 3 (61.33%) with her 7-year-old, imported Dutch gelding, Rosado.

She runs Two Chestnuts Dressage, a training barn in Oklahoma City. “I’ve always had chestnuts,” she said. “I just love them.”

Irnas, a 15-year-old, imported Dutch gelding, owned and ridden by Lisa Blackmon of Valley View, Texas, placed second to Loki in both Grand Prix championship classes. The pair also won the GAIG/USDF Region 9 Intermediaire II title.

Blackmon, who runs Black Star Sport Horses in the Dallas area, also took second place in the GAIG/USDF open third level championship with Saint Simmon, a 6-year-old, U.S.-bred Dutch gelding who also com-peted in the FEI 6-year-old classes this year.

A Collection Of Titles
Trainer Martha Diaz rode Windsong to victory in both the GAIG/USDF and Southwest open Intermediaire I championships and both Prix St. Georges championships. Melanie Pai of Fulshear, Texas’s Canaan Ranch, owns the 9-year-old, chestnut Hanoverian gelding by Weltmeyer.

Diaz also won the GAIG/USDF open first level championship on Donatus, Pai’s 4-year-old, Oldenburg stallion. After two years spent training in Houston, she’s now moving back to the El Paso area.

Claire Darnell, of Georgetown, Texas, rode her mother Joan’s gelding Carnegie to win both the GAIG/USDF Region 9 junior first level and the Southwest junior first level championships, and they were second in both second level championships. They also took the GAIG/Region 9 first level freestyle championship and the Southwest first-fourth level freestyle championship.

The Darnells have owned the tall, black, 5-year-old Oldenburg (Contucci–Vodka Gimlet, Martini) since they bought him from his Colorado breeder as a weanling. “We fell in love with [Contucci’s] video,” she said.

They’ve also done all his training. “Mom does all the ground work, and I do the first rides,” she said.

The family also put Carnegie’s first level freestyle together themselves, to a medley of Beatles tunes. “We bought the music but did all the choreography,” Darnell said. Then father Greg Darnell contributed computer skills for the final editing.

This year, the pair have also shown the FEI 5-year-old test–they were 11th at the finals in Kentucky in September. “That was so much fun,” Darnell said.

All In The Family
Next year she plans to do the FEI 6-year-old test, along with the 4-year-old test on Carnegie’s full brother, Calamar, who they also own. They’ve also had the 4-year-old full sister, Capriana, in training and may be getting the weanling full sibling as well. All are black, with just a little white on their foreheads.

Carnegie “can be hot,” Claire said. “Not spooky hot, but jazzy hot.” Even when he was started, “there were joy bucks, but he was never bad.”

He does like attention, though. “When I was riding the other horses he’d get mad,” she said. “He’d try to bite and make faces.”

Darnell went to the 2002 North American Young Riders Championships with Solstice, who’s now 22 and retired. Except for clinics, she’s always trained with her mother, dressage R-rated judge Joan Darnell.

Claire is a freshman at Baylor University (Texas), where she’s majoring in business and riding on the equestrian team. She rides Western for the team as well, which she likes better than the hunters. “I hate crunching my leg up,” she said. She wants to be a baseball sports agent and a dressage trainer when she graduates.

For now, she rides at home on the weekends, while her mother keeps up the horses’ training during the week. “I only rode Carnegie once in the three weeks before championships,” she said.

That may change, though. “We’re trying to find a Young Riders horse. If I do, I’ll probably take him to [college].”