August 7, Gladstone, N.J.
Cesar Parra couldn’t contain his emotion when he finished his winning Intermediaire I ride aboard Olympia at the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Dressage Festival Of Champions. He pumped his fist in the air and threw kisses to the crowd all the way out of the arena.
Although Parra has represented his native Colombia at the Olympic Games, the World Equestrian Games, the Pan American Games and the World Cup Final, riding in a national championship for the first time as a U.S. citizen and achieving a win trumps all of that.
“My daughter is 20 and my son is 17. It’s hard to educate kids these days because there is so much going on. I try to say I have faith; I believe in God. They hear that in church and then forget it with the TV, Xbox and the Internet,” he said.
“I’ve been telling them that if you believe in something and you work hard, you get it. I think that’s basically what America is founded on. That’s why I moved here. To be an American for the first year and to be winning the championships is a dream come true. I can’t teach my kids anything better than that. It’s like a movie. You write a script and it happens,” he continued.
Parra said Olympia, a 14-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding (Jazz—Zeester), felt much better than yesterday, when something spooked him in the warm-up three minutes before his ride time.
“I knew [Kassandra Barteau] was ahead of me by 1 point so I needed to get two percent to get ahead of her. That was my goal, so I didn’t rest for any stride. I almost passed out when I came out,” said Parra.
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Barteau ended up in second place today (71.10%) after her Prix St. Georges win yesterday aboard Toscano. She placed just ahead of her mother Yvonne Barteau on GP Raymeister (69.73%).
The entire Barteau family works together in the horse business in Maple Park, Ill., and Kassie and Yvonne were thrilled to finish 2-3.
“I’m so happy that we’re both sitting at this table,” said Kassie.
Yvonne offered some insight into the differences in their riding styles.
“Kassie is an amazing show ring rider. When you’re a trainer, you sometimes ride for the next ride, and you don’t so much ride for the ride you’re in right now. Kassie is very, very good at riding the ride she’s in right now. If I could learn from her, I would do that and ride a little bit more for today and not so much for tomorrow and the next day. Sometimes I let myself be too much of a trainer in the ring,” she said.
Mistakes marred the tests of the riders who finished fourth through sixth. Chris Hickey on Cabana Boy, yesterday’s third-placed finisher, dropped to fourth (68.26%) after a hiccup in the tempi changes.
Marisa Festerling had a costly error aboard Big Tyme when she went into half-pass left after her 10-meter circle instead of shoulder-in. She finished in fifth place on 68.15 percent.
Bulgari V threw in an extra lead change in the extended canter with Caroline Roffman and then anticipated the trot transition, leaving them with a score of 68.00 for sixth place.
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The three tests—Prix St. Georges, Intermediaire I and freestyle—in the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF National Intermediaire I Championship all count differently toward the final score. The Prix St. Georges is 45 percent, the Intermediaire I is 30 percent and the freestyle is 25 percent.
Top 5 Intermediaire I Championships standings after the Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire I
1. Olympia, Cesar Parra, 53.34%
2. Toscano, Kassandra Barteau, 52.83
3. Cabana Boy, Chris Hickey, 51.12
4. Bulgari V, Caroline Roffman, 50.62
5. Big Tyme, Marisa Festerling, 50.21
For full results visit www.foxvillage.com
Check out more stories from the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Dressage Festival Of Champions.
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