Wishing o By Charlene Strickland
With the right training and show experi- ence, in five years he could potentially be ready for the ultimate dressage test, the Grand Prix. Beyond that, how does one predict a prospect has that extra star quality --the ability to excel at FEI levels, enough to earn a place on the USEF Short List for an international team? We talked with veteran dressage
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riders who’ve developed the horses they trained into superstars. They discuss how to recognize if a horse can develop that special star power, but they also caution about surprises along the way.
Guenter Seidel
Guenter has competed in three Olym- pic Games, winning three team bronze medals for the U.S. in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens. The Bavarian Aragon (Abydos x Lorenz) was his mount at the 2004 Games in Athens. Guenter first showed the gray in early 2004, where judges at the Mid-Winter Dressage Show in Los Angeles gave him three 9s on piaffe. That February show was Aragon’s first with Guenter. “He showed me he has a lot of talent,” he said at a press conference at the show. And a few months later, at the 2004 Olympic trials, Aragon earned a 10 and three 9s on his piaffe. From Cardiff, California, Guenter says predicting that level of talent ahead of
16 July/August 2018 HO W T OP P R O S IDEN TI FY
ny five-year-old can look prom- ising if he has three very good gaits and a willingness to work.
time is very difficult. “You can never say ‘team horse.’ You have to go in and pull your scores.”
“I don’t think that
far ahead,” he adds. “I never say, ‘This will be my next team horse.’ No matter how good or bad they are, you’re always surprised. Often the ones you think will make it, they don’t. And the ones you think, ‘Oh, it will be an amateur horse or whatever,’ all of a sudden they bloom and you go, ‘Wow.’” In 2018 Guenter is
riding a KWPN mare, Crush on You (Pres- tige VDL x Kannan).
He co-owns her with Egbert Kraak of the Netherlands. “I saw her there and tried her,” he says. “I bought half of her and am just getting to know her now.” He started showing the mare in
Grand Prix early in 2018. He praises her character, saying, “She is quite an honest horse and she’s hot enough. She has a super canter and she has good talent for piaffe and passage.” Guenter mentions “hot” as a posi-
tive attribute for a Grand Prix horse. The Grand Prix test is long, with 33 scored movements. The horse must have the spirit and endurance to maintain energy throughout the whole test. “It’s silly for me to say this will be my
next team horse,” he continues. “This is the horse I train right now. That’s how I look at it. I take one show at a time.”
TOP: Guenter Seidel on Aragon (Abydos x Lorenz), at the 2004 Olympic Trials, San Juan Capistrano, California. BOTTOM: Geunter on the mare Crush on You (Prestige VDL x Kannan) at the Del Mar National CDI3* last February showing Grand Prix.
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