The Golden State Dressage Festival has proved to be a good luck event for Wendy Christoff. This year’s edition of the CDI, held April 7-10 in Rancho Murieta, Calif., marked the third time in a row that the Canadian from Delta, B.C., has claimed Grand Prix victory there with Pfalstaff.

However, Christoff’s annual pilgrimage south to California didn’t start off well this year, as Pfalstaff was feeling under the weather on the way down. Christoff had him examined by veterinarians, but they couldn’t come up with a definitive diagnosis.

She competed the 17-year-old Han-overian (Palladium—Gross Liebe, Gren-adier) at the Dressage Affair in Del Mar, Calif., March 10-13, but then he spent a week at the Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Center in Los Olivos because he wasn’t eating, and Christoff had to scratch from the Burbank CDI (Calif.) March 31-April 3.
While no veterinarian was able to pinpoint exactly what was making Pfal-staff ill, their best guess was that he had an ulcer that wasn’t showing up on scans. Christoff then switched him to oat hay and started administering ulcer medication.

She didn’t want to stress Pfalstaff further by making the three-day trip home from Southern California with him by himself in the trailer, so she tagged along to Rancho Murieta with her barn mates from Leslie Reid’s barn in Langley, B.C.

Pfalstaff kept getting stronger and stronger, and by the time they arrived at Rancho Murieta, Christoff thought,

“I’m here, and I’m entered. Why not try?”

And Pfalstaff came through for her, winning the Grand Prix (66.40%) and the Special (66.22%).
“He wasn’t quite as sharp in the Grand Prix as he was in the Special,” she said. “It was a decent test, but he was a little bit behind my leg, and he was not quite as sharp as I wanted him. In the Special he was really on, and I made a small mistake in the test. But he moved better, he was more up, and his piaffe and passage were stronger.”

Christoff, 57, was only able to school Pfalstaff three times since the Del Mar show in mid-March.

“But he knows his job, and I just need to keep him fit and strong,” she said.

After last year’s win the pair headed off on a whirlwind world tour. They spent nine weeks showing in Europe
and training with Robert Dover, the Canadian team coach in 2010. Then they went to Kentucky for the Canadian team training camp as the reserve rider for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

“It was really fantastic,” said Christ-off of her European trip. “Competing over there was so different than competing here. It was quite a shock to my system. It gave me a whole new outlook and made me grow up a lot in my showing.”

A Bright Future For Finally

Christoff wasn’t the only rider to score repeat wins at the Golden State Dressage Festival. Last year’s small tour winners, Finally and Mette Rosencrantz, beat out 28 other competitors in the Prix St. Georges (68.07%).

A mental blip in the Intermediaire I prevented Rosencrantz from winning that class as well. She did a perfect rein back, except, whoops, she only counted to four instead of five for the steps.

“I knew I did four, and I don’t know why. I’ve done that I-1 test 100 times,” said Rosencrantz. Her mistake opened the door for Carolyn Adams and Winterprinz to take blue (68.47%) by just .19 over Finally’s 68.28 percent.

“Finally is just getting better and better,” said Rosencrantz. “He’s not been so easy, and he’s slowly getting more rideability. It’s taken me a while to get where we are now. All the pieces are coming together now, and this is the first season I feel OK about entering the ring. And now I feel that I can trust him through the test. I feel that I have a bright future with him.”

In the Prix St. Georges, Rosencrantz scored 8s on some of the movements she’s been working to improve, but then she lost points where the 10-year-old Hanoverian usually scores well. She’s looking forward to the day when she can go from her entry halt at X to her final salute and keep everything the same.

“I think right now it’s the details that I’m losing points on,” said Rosencrantz. “Things like not being square in the halt. But then he gets an 8 on his ex-tended trot. I need to perfect all those details to bump it up the next step. But I was very pleased with my rides this weekend.”

Rosencrantz, 57, has been battling pneumonia this winter and flew to Rancho Murieta instead of driving up from Topanga, Calif., where she bases her business. She spoke appreciatively about the hard work and support of her long time groom Anna Dahlberg.

“It’s always nice to be at Rancho Murieta,” said Rosencrantz. “I like the facility, the people are very friendly, the footing is great, and the stabling is good. Here you have big warm-up rings for every show ring, plus the warm-up rings have very good footing too. It’s just a nice place to show.”

Finally (De Niro—Capri Sonne, Capri-mond) is owned by the Finally Partners of Topanga. Rosencrantz found him in Germany not quite two years ago. She trains with Debbie McDonald.

A Successful Return

Winterprinz hasn’t been showing at all lately—in fact this was the 17-year-old stallion’s first outing in more than two years. But the Hanoverian (Warkant—Windrose, Weltmeyer) proved he still knows how to turn it on in the show ring by placing fourth in the Prix St. Georges (66.24%) and winning the Intermediare I for owner-rider Adams.

Cesar Lopardo-Grana of Argentina was the judge at C for the Intermediaire test. He said Adams showed a very supple and balanced horse. He also praised the straightness of Winterprinz’s flying changes.

“He has very good elasticity, and the rider looks very comfortable riding him,” said Lopardo-Grana.

Adams, 57, has been working on the Grand Prix movements with Winter-prinz, but she decided to bring him out for the Pan American trials as this would be his last chance to try out for a U.S. team because of his age.
Adams and her husband Patrick have owned Winterprinz since he was 3. They left him in Germany to do the 100-day test and then brought him to their Yarra Yarra Ranch in Pleasanton, Calif. She’s trained with Dirk Glitz for the last four years and also clinics with Steffen Peters.

Jaclyn Pepper made her first trip north to Rancho Murieta a winning one with her 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Taboo (Flemmingh—Halekulani, Vosmaer) to win the CDI Young Rider Team (64.73%) and Individual tests (66.76%).

“He was such a good boy,” said Pepper. “He just went in the indoor and didn’t care about anything. Which was good, because he can be sort of a chicken sometimes. We had a really good ride in the team test. It was a
little conservative but it was a clean test.

“On Saturday morning we had an amazing ride,” she continued. “He was so good the entire time, and he was a lot more forward.”

Pepper purchased Taboo nine months ago from Sherry Criswell, who bought him as a foal from his breeder Deborah Harrison, DVM. This was only their third show together and Pepper’s first season to try out for young riders.

Pepper, 17, has only been riding dressage for four years and showed hunters before that.

“I’m so lucky to have found Taboo,” said Pepper. “I looked for a horse for three years. He’s the most fun horse I’ve ever ridden. He’s so talented and so willing to learn things. He’s so smart. He catches on
to things so fast. I’m still trying to figure him out. We’re not totally on the same page yet.”

Pepper, San Diego, has been training with Allison Mathy, until Mathy moved to Petaluma last fall. Now she’s training with Laurie Falvo Doyle in Encinitas, Calif., but when she moves north to attend Sonoma State Univer-sity in the fall she will resume training with Mathy.