Robert Dover did it again and in some kind of style. Freestyle to be exact, with a score of 81.70 in the Bayer/USET Foundation Festival of Champions presented by State Line Tack. The competition was the 2004 Olympic Dressage Trials and also determined the USEF Grand Prix National Championship.
Dover is president of the Equestrian AIDS Foundation and is now headed for his Sixth Olympic Games, in Athens this August.
Gunter Seidel was second in the Freestyle on Aragon with a 78.425%, and third on Nikolaus 7 with 77.175%. Leslie Morse was fourth on Kingston with 77.025% and Steffen Peters on Floriano was fifth with 75.625%.
For the entire Trials the overall scores were: Dover and Kennedy 78.478%: Seidel and Aragon 73.886%; Seidel and Nikolaus 73.181%; Peters and Floriano 72.386%; and Morse and Kingston 71.899%.
The big story of these Trials wasn't just Dover, it was also the overall quality of the performances during the entire trials, capped off by the excellent Freestyle rides.
U.S. Dressage Coach Klaus Balkenhol is looking forward to Athens. Gunter Seidel translated, 'He's very happy with the results. It is an international caliber show so he was expecting those kinds of scores really right before the Olympics if you want to be competitive in an international sport like this. It's very good to have a very big show with these kinds of results for American Dressage. It was a great audience that we haven't seen that much. He hopes that we will all keep our form for Athens and come home with a good medal and that no judge will look past our good riding, our good performances. He gives credit to Debby and Brentina who are making very good progress here and looking excellent. He hopes all the other horse and riders will show up well in Athens and the whole world is going to talk about the American dressage riders.'
About his experience in the Trials Dover said, 'This was the first time ... when I showed Kennedy with this kind of an atmosphere so I learned how much I could trust him with each class that I went into. Klaus gave me help from the side that gave me confidence to more or less trust my instincts on things, so it was definitely a learning situation.'
'I came into today wanting to have a really fun time,' Dover said. 'So today I went out to have a great time with my horse. I did that and I finished each ride with a smile on my face because I thought my horses were fine and that they enjoyed themselves in the ring today. That's really what's it all about.'
