Omaha, Neb.—March 30  

The question came to Laura Graves in the press conference. “Do you think you can beat Isabell Werth in the freestyle?”

Graves leaned forward and without hesitation said very clearly and loudly, “I think anything is possible.”

Werth came into the FEI World Cup Dressage Final as the hot favorite, and in the Grand Prix test she showed everyone that she’s definitely the one to beat in the freestyle on Saturday.

Isabell Werth will be the one to beat on Saturday after winning the Grand Prix with an 82.30 percent on Weihegold OLD. Photo by Kimberly Loushin

Werth, of Germany, and Weihegold OLD topped the Grand Prix by a margin of almost 3 percentage points (82.30%) over the United States’ Graves on Verdades (79.80%). Carl Hester of Great Britain rounded out the top three with a score of 76.67 percent on Nip Tuck. Graves’ fellow U.S. riders were in the middle of the pack, with Kasey Perry-Glass taking seventh on Goerkgaard’s Dublet (73.82%) and Steffen Peters finishing eighth on Rosamunde (72.25%).

But Graves made it clear that she’s not going to let Werth run off with the title on freestyle day. “I came here to win,” she said.
“Finishing second to Isabell still feels like winning. This is only my second World Cup. Compared to Las Vegas [in 2015], I was super proud of my horse and how he’s developed over the past two years. He’s extremely spooky, and he’s a lot to manage in that type of environment, but he was very honest in there. We had a few mistakes and they were both unfortunately in double coefficient movements. It puts me in a place to be very excited about Saturday, knowing that if we ride clean, we can have a really good test.”

Laura Graves and Verdades are making their second appearance in the FEI World Cup Final and they turned in a performance that gave them second with a 79.80 percent. Photo by Kimberly Loushin

In his prediction of the competition for the Chronicle’s World Cup Preview issue, Michael Barisone noted that Weihegold OLD might not be the flashiest mover in the field, but that “she can do every single piece of the Grand Prix beautifully,” he wrote. “She has no weak point in the test—no movement where you go, “Well, that’s a 6.”

And Werth’s Grand Prix test matched that assessment. The mare was steady and focused, without any signs of tension or worry. Her piaffe/passage tour was lovely, and while there was a bit of a mistake in the two-tempis, but her textbook pirouettes made up for that.

At the end of the test, Werth dropped her reins and patted Weihegold with a big smile. “She felt a little bit tense when I came into the ring, and then of course there was applause for Laura, so I had to start a bit carefully,” Werth said. “The mistake in the two-tempis was my fault; as always, it’s the rider’s fault. I forgot to stay concentrated. But after that, the rest was really good. The pirouette and piaffe/passage were good. I was very happy with today, and we’re looking forward to the freestyle. Now my job is to calm her down! She was very excited in the prize giving! It was an electric atmosphere, and I think it’ll be even more so on Saturday.”

Judge Katrina Wuest of Germany, who officiated from C for the Grand Prix, noted that Weihegold and Verdades are very different types of horses. “Verdades is an extremely powerful and impressive horse. Maybe his paces are the best of the [top three horses]. But sometimes Laura has to keep this big impulsion under control and that makes her appear at times a little crooked,” Wuest said.

“Weihegold is extremely collected and does everything with ease. She’s extremely straight and except for the two-tempis, there wasn’t the slightest idea of an inconsistency,” continued Wuest.

Carl Hester rode Nip Tuck to third with a 76.67 percent. Photo by Kimberly Loushin

Hester was very pleased with Nip Tuck’s Grand Prix test, especially given that the tall bay declined to eat for the first three days he was in Omaha. “He was very down the first day I was here, just a bit flat,” Hester said. “Then this morning when I took him in the ring for his familiarization he walked in, reared up and turned around and tried to go out, so we all said, all right, back to normal now.”

Nip Tuck is known for the occasional unpredictability, so Hester was happy he kept his focus throughout the Grand Prix. “Actually for a first day test for him, that’s not bad. The first day is generally hit and miss, and I always say, ‘whatever happened on the first day, he’s normally great on the second.’  So I kind of got used to him being not as relaxed as he was today. And I had to ride a bit, which caught me by surprise—I’m usually just steering around going, ‘Whoa, whoa!”

This is Perry-Glass’ first World Cup Final with Goerklingaard’s Dublet, and while her test suffered a bit from tension, she was happy with their performance. “This is a big environment for him, and something we’re not used to. He was very positive in there. He was a little bit spicy in the warm-up, but he got it under control before we got out there. He just was really with me and trying really hard to keep going. I’m really proud of him,” she said. “The canter work was a little tricky for us; he gets a little tight in the canter. I would like to work a little bit more of getting his attention a little bit more in the canter and getting that relaxation back.”

Peters is no stranger to a World Cup Final, having won the 2009 version with Ravel, but for Rosamunde, in her second year of Grand Prix, this was a big step up. “She was a bit nervous. Even though she was a bit insecure she was listening,” Peters said. “There was a little tension in the walk, but overall a clean test. I’m pretty happy with it. It was a great start for her for a young horse like her to do so well in this atmosphere. There were lots of wonderful things in the test—beautiful trot half passes and she actually stood still [in the halt], which is a huge luxury for us. She did clean changes, wonderful pirouettes, it was a great start.”

On Saturday, April 1, 14 riders will return to the ring on a clean slate for their freestyle tests. Hanna Karasiova of Belarus didn’t make the 60 percent cut-off for the freestyle, and New Zealand rider Wendi Willimanson was eliminated after her Grand Prix test on Dejavu MH for blood in the horse’s mouth.

Find full results of the FEI World Cup Dressage Final Grand Prix here. 

The Chronicle will have live blogs of competition sessions, Twitter updates, photo galleries, stories about each day’s competition, and so much more on www.coth.com. Don’t miss a thing—we’ll have everything you need to know. Also make sure to follow along on the Chronicle’s social media outlets: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.