Lyle Debuts Lars van de Hoenderheide at 2024 CDN Wellington "Hors Concours"

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2024 CDN Wellington

While in Europe the indoor season is working towards a peak with some of the last indoor events taking place in 's Hertogenbosch and Herning this weekend before the World Cup Finals in April, in Wellington the weather finally has shifted into typical Florida mode with toasty temperatures and one of the expected U.S. Olympic team contenders - Adrienne Lyle - has debuted new purchase Lars van de Hoenderheide on 8 March 2024.

Heidi Humphries of Zen Elite equestrian centre made four last minute bold purchases to save the U.S. dressage team from a potential major drop on the score board at the 2024 olympics this summer. With only one pair left standing from the Tokyo team (Steffen Peters on Suppenkasper) and no real consistent high scorers seemingly fit and ready this Olympic year, the U.S. could be in dire straits.

Humphries to the rescue as she bought four established Grand Prix horses in Europe last minute before the FEI Olympic ownership deadline: Endel Ots got Cathrine Dufour's medal winner Bohemian, Adrienne Lyle got Lottie Fry's Lars van de Hoenderheide and Marina Mattsson's Helix, and Christian Simonson got Adelinde Cornelissen's Fleau de Baian. Not too shabby a line-up!

Ots Comes Out First

Endel Ots and the 14-year old Westfalian Bohemian (by Bordeaux x Samarant) were the first of the four pairs that made its public coming out first this year.

Ots had a little more time to get acquainted to Bohemian as the horse arrived in the U.S.A. in December, but the rider is far less experienced than Lyle at riding Grand Prix. Ots has never ridden a Grand Prix test before, even though he successfully competed on the U.S. Developing Grand Prix Horse scene with Agastrofos and Donatus. His first actual Grand Prix test was on schoolmaster Sai Baba Plus at the end of January 2024 before he rode his second Grand Prix test on Bohemian at the the Palm Beach derby (1 - 3 March).

Ots and Bohemian scored 72.5% in the Grand Prix and a 74.256% in the Special. More on that ride here.

Lyle Debuts Lars "Hors Concours"

While Ots rode two official national classes, Lyle went for the "safer" option and chose to ride "Hors Concours" which means her score does not get published, nor does it count with USDF. In case of a bad ride, her score would never become public; if it was a good test the ride can determine herself to publish the result.

The class was judged by Marilyn Payne and was not streamed live (none of the national tests in Wellington are streamed). Spectators reported that the overall scoring in the class was high. The test was won by Ashley Holzer on her super talented but very tense Hansel with 74.783%

According to witness accounts, Lyle rode Lars in a rather tight frame with quite some curb contact which made the horse gape and show tongue at times. The trot extensions went well, there was a bit of a rhythm issue in the half passes but they were ground covering. The pair struggled with the first piaffe. The last one at X was not (really) executed. The highlights were for sure in the canter work, which were also the horse's strong point under Lottie Fry, who excels at producing high class tempi changes on all her horses. Also under Lyle the chestnut Lars produced big, scopey flying changes in the tempi's and zig zag.

Lyle chose to disclose her score of 73.3% on social media.

Developing a Relationship

In a post-show interview with Dressage-News, Lyle commented "I am very happy! We are such a new partnership and there is still a lot we can improve on, but my goal was to go in and really go for it and not ride conservative, and he is a horse that really allows you to do that.”

Lyle told Dressage-News that she canceled her other entries for Lars this weekend so the horse “gets some easy days and lots and lots of pampering for being such a good boy!”

Four days ago Adrienne shared a home video of her riding Lars on Instagram and posted "developing a relationship with these talented boys over the past month has been so rewarding. Not just the riding part, but how they are on the ground.. their likes and dislikes… how we interact and communicate with each other… There is so much for us to learn about each other, but with patience and persistence we are slowly building our partnership."

A return to sport of Adrienne's Tokyo Olympic and 2018/2022 WEG ride, 17-year old Hanoverian stallion Salvino, is Wellington's best kept secret at the moment...