Palm Beach Derby High Point

[caption id="attachment_1161" align="alignleft" width="214" caption="Maria Litahnder & Adelante"][/caption] USPRE High Point Award Winners for the Palm Beach Derby Maria Lithander and Adelante Last weekend's winner of the USPRE High Point Award at the prestigious Palm Beach Dressage Derby was Maria Lithander, riding Adelante, a 2002 PRE Stallion owned by Hampton Green Farm Maria and Adelante's score of 72% at Training Level 4 on Friday became the Open Division score to beat by several other competitive riders that weekend, including Janne Rumbough--last year's recipient--and Ana Gilmour Scores were high and edging closer to the 70%s as the weekend wore on, and it appeared that perhaps close friendships might be thrust aside in the heat of nail-biting competition between the three dressage divas and their worthy mounts In the end, however, the greenest horse's score stood as the highest and Adelante received the coveted award at this his second ever dressage competition This is Maria Lithander's first USPRE award Maria, originally from Sweden, resides in Wellington and is the Head Trainer of Hampton Green Farm She has ridden PREs for many years during her time as a dressage trainer in Mexico and currently rides a number of PREs for a several different clients The President of the College of Judges in Spain, Diego Marin Fidalgo, was on hand to present the award, as was ANCCE Delegado and USPRE Vice President Alexander Zilo, and the judge of the winning class Marilynn Griffin The USPRE High Point Award at the Palm Beach Dressage Derby is a Perpetual Award and joins a number of other sponsored awards offered at this historic show, including awards by The Hannoverian Society, Walter and Mary Anne McPhail, the Pferdekaempers, Shauna Baur, Al Guden, Purina, HFR International Horse Transportation and others USPRE offers one award at the Open USEF level, and one at the CDI level This year, no PRE participated at the CDI level