Italy’s Valentina Truppa won the World Dressage Masters' Grand Prix Freestyle at the 2015 CDI * in Vidauban, France, on Sunday 15 March 2015. Aboard her Danish bred Chablis, Truppa showed a solid performance with hardly any mistakes. Valentina did leave out a few difficult excersises she usually shows in her kur, probably due to the harsh weather conditions.
After two weeks of brilliant sunny weather, the 2015 Vidauban Dressage Festival unfortunatelu had to deal with rain and storm on the last day of competition. Riders chose to go on the safe side in the kur.
Germany’s Thomas Wagner and Amoricello finished in second place although they finished with the same percentage as Valentina and Chablis. But according to the rules the artistic score is decisive in case of an equal score in the Freestyle and Valentina’s artistic score was slightly higher. Thomas performed a very good Freestyle with highlights in the passage. It was Wagner’s debut in the WDM and he was a member of the German team that won the FEI Nations Cup in Vidauban the week before.
For show host Bernadette Brune, who had a home game with Spirit of The Age OLD, it was her first appearance in the WDM. She had contributed to the win of the German team in the FEI Nations Cup on 5 - 8 MArch at the CDIO Vidauban. Bernadette, who owns Domaine Equestre des Grands Pins, rode her new Freestyle for the second time. She had a nice, well built up Freestyle. The pirouettes were better than in the WDM Grand Prix and she achieved a personal best score.
The winner of the Grand Prix, Patrik Kittel, was unfortunately eliminated. Dr. Jean-Michel Roudier, president of the jury, stopped Kittel just after his test as he saw some red coloured foam on the horse. Kittel said afterwards: “When I was finished Mr Roudier saw a tiny bit of blood in the mouth. Deja is the softest horse so I can only think that it happened when she got afraid of an umbrella. She felt amazing and was on a score of over 82%. When I came out there was nothing to see. I am very sad because Deja did such an amazing job in the rain and storm.”
WDM proved again to be a podium for tomorrow’s stars. In Vidauban there were some new riders and horses that showed a lot of potential. For instance Portuguese Gonçalo Carvalho, who was the surprising, but justified winner of the WDM Grand Prix Special.
Photo © Rui Pedro Godinho
Related Links
Scores 2015 CDI Vidauban
Eurodressage On the Scene at the 2015 Vidauban Dressage Festival