Omaha, Neb.—March 30   

You could pick Maria Florencia Manfredi out of the FEI World Cup Dressage Final warm-up ring very easily—in a ring full of serious, focused riders, she was the one with the huge smile waving to the spectators, obviously soaking in the experience.

“They came here to see the horses and to see us, so I think we need to show them a little respect,” she said of her interaction with the spectators. “If they want to say hi, if they want to pet the horse, that’s good for the sport.”

Maria Florencia Manfredi and Bandurria Kacero. Photo by Kimberly Loushin

Manfredi also stood out in that she fills the groom role for Bandurria Kacero as well as that of rider. “I groom him myself, I feed him, I do the stall, handwalk, graze, tack him up. Everything,” she said. “I don’t have help here. My coach, my vet, and my mom are here—that’s all. That’s my team. They help me in the warm-up, they help me when I come up to the ring.”

Manfredi’s genuine joy just to be competing at the World Cup Final was obvious. She’s the first rider from Argentina to show in a World Cup Final, and she’s enjoying every moment of it. “It felt very, very good,” she said of her Grand Prix test, which scored a 66.50 percent for 14^th place. “I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I don’t care about the score. This was my dream, going in there today,” she said after her test aboard her Bandurria Kacero.

Maria Florencia Manfredi on Bandurria Kacero. Photo by Kimberly Loushin

“Edward [Gal] is in there riding now after myself, can you believe it! I was riding [in the ring] with him the other day; I felt like a little kid at Christmas. I was like, ‘Can I touch him? Can he give me that magic he has?’ He’s so talented. I love his magic,” Manfredi said.

Manfredi is from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she runs a small professional dressage training business. “I have four young horses and a lot of clients waiting for me,” she said. “I was supposed to go back a month ago but with qualifying for the World Cup [I stayed in the United States]. They were happy for me, but they’re like, ‘Please come back!’”

Manfredi usually travels to Wellington, Fla., in the winter to show because there are no CDIs in Argentina, and she needs to add points to her world ranking. The strategy paid off as she represented her country in the 2015 Pan American Games (Toronto, Ont.) aboard Bandurria Kacero.

Maria Florencia Manfredi on Bandurria Kacero during their Grand Prix test. Photo by Kimberly Loushin

This year during the Adequan Global Dressage Fesitval (Fla.) she set a new goal. “I talked to my trainer and said, ‘Can we go to the World Cup?’ But because I didn’t ride in [ranking classes] since March of last year, I thought it was a little crazy. It was a dream. But scores were coming up and up, and after my last show I was like, ‘I can do it!’ Then they told me I qualified. And I’m already qualified for [the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games (N.C.)] so I’m very excited,” she said.

Manfredi and Bandurria Kacero won their last class of the AGDF, the three-star CDI Grand Prix freestyle on March 24.

Growing up in Buenos Aires, Manfredi fell in love with horses and started showing jumpers. But when she was 14, she watched the Pan American Games in Buenos Aires in 1995 and saw her first glimpse of upper level dressage. “I saw those horses dance so I thought, that’s what I want to do,” she recalled. Patrick Burssens of Mexico won the gold medal that year at the Pan Ams and now he trains Manfredi along with her Argentinian coach Enrique Sztyrle.

Bandurria Kacero is an enormous horse, standing at 18.3 hands, and Manfredi is quite petite. She’s brought the 11-year-old along to the Grand Prix level herself, after converting him from a jumper to a dressage horse. He’s bred in Argentina (Wonder Boy—Bandurria Farola).

“He’s very big with a lot of energy,” said Manfredi. “It’s fun. He can be a little wild—going back to the stall after his test, he was rearing and backing up. In the jog he was crazy. That’s normal for him, and I think he’s a happy and healthy horse, and I want him to be a horse.”

Manfredi isn’t afraid to draw a little attention herself, either. She was attired in a lovely shadbelly with purple trim, and she sported quite a bit of sparkly rhinestones. “I like bling bling, it’s gorgeous, and dressage is supposed to be gorgeous,” she said.

Make sure to check back at www.coth.com on Saturday, April 1 to see how Manfredi does in the freestyle, for which she qualified.

Also, don’t miss COTH’s coverage of the epic battle shaping up between Isabell Werth and Laura Graves for the World Cup title.