On Sunday afternoon 16 March 2014, Canadian Shannon Dueck topped the Intermediaire 1 Freestyle at the 2014 CDI-W Wellington aboard Elizabeth Ferber's Cantaris with the pair's best score yet. They finished first with a 71.625% for the top finish. Second place went to Antonio Rivera Galarza (MEX) and Wimbledon for their score of 68.542%. Paula Matute (ESP) picked up the third place prize on a score of 68.250% with Tarpan.
"I'm absolutely thrilled with him," Dueck said of Cantaris, a 11-year-old Hanoverian gelding by Complement. "He's a horse that gets better in a more exciting ring, so he was super in that ring. There are always things we can improve. I think we can do better than that, with our score, but I was really happy and I love our music."
She continued, "It's only the second time I've ridden to it, and I absolutely love it. Karen Robinson found it and let me listen to it and I said, 'That's my music! It's perfect for my horse.' It's beautiful. I love the vocals in it. There aren't a lot of words, but there are a lot of choral [aspects]."
Dueck was excited to earn a new best score with the gelding, who she has been working with to gain strength and uphill movement. Cantaris' canter work particularly pleased Dueck during their test today.
"I have to say, his canter half passes were amazing. We do changes on a bending line, and his threes were lovely. He also did a shoulder in straight down towards the judge, and we change [the direction of the bend] back and forth. That was spot on," Dueck smiled.
"The other thing I absolutely love about this horse is his extended canter," she added. "I rarely ride a horse that can really do an extended canter that really gets bigger and more uphill, and he can really do that."
Dueck has had the ride on Cantaris for about a year. The horse predominately trains with Dueck's student, Maria Louise Barrett, in Massachusetts and just came back to Dueck at the beginning of the Florida circuit. Between her and Barrett's training, Dueck hopes to move the gelding up to Grand Prix by the end of the year; she's already been schooling all the movements with him, but is still working on developing his piaffe.
by Laura Cardon - Photo © Sue Stickle
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