USPRE Member Shines at Grand Prix at Global Dressage

Wellington, FL – January 24, 2013 – The 2013 Adequan Global Dressage Festival AGDF began this week with the National Opener Show on January 22-23 Dressage riders from all levels turned out to compete and get experience in the main Global Arena The judge for the show was Margaret Freeman The AGDF continues next week with the Wellington Dressage CDI-W presented by The Dutta Corp on January 31 – February 3, which kicks off the international dressage season at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center The AGDF will host another four national shows as well as another CDI-W, CDI 3, CDI 5, and CDIO 3

One familiar face in the dressage arena on Tuesday was Janne Rumbough of MTICA Farm Rumbough and her partner Junior, a gelding who is coming 11 years old this year He is a Pure Spanish horse, and this was their first time competing in the FEI Grand Prix-AA test They scored a 61809%, achieving Rumbough’s first goal of scoring over 60%

It has been a long and patient road for Rumbough with Junior She rode Junior’s sire, Gaucho III, and bred Junior After starting him as a four-year-old, Rumbough slowly made her way up the levels, making sure that Junior was solid at each level and performing to certain scores before moving up

From the start, Rumbough believed that Junior could be a Grand Prix Level horse, but she knew it would take time “I started him when he was a four-year-old because he was growing a lot I always start them later It’s been six years to get to grand prix,” she explained “He’s been very naughty and wild But all the good horses have that personality If they don’t have that spirit, they’re never going to make it to Grand Prix I think he’s going to be better than his sire You never know before you are there, before you walk down the centerline”

“It’s very special for me because I’ve trained him all the way through Training Level, First Level; I went to every single level,” Rumbough expressed “I was very strict with myself that I had to have a certain amount of very high scores before I allowed myself to move up a level I moved up a level almost every year Even in the Prix St Georges, I needed one or two scores of 70 for me to move up to I-1 I-2 I needed a 66, which I got here last year, and then I allowed myself to go to Grand Prix”

Rumbough said that despite the wind and the fact that it was Junior’s first time in the Global Arena, she was “thrilled to get over 60%” She continued, “His strong points were the difficult parts, the passage and the piaffe His walk was very strong, the extended walk and the collected walk was very good Where he was not good was in the transition from canter to trot, which he can do! One pirouette, you have to have six strides and I had a four, and that’s a no-no The other one he had six strides and he got a nice mark on that Those were the mistakes and we can hopefully correct it I’m going to try and get better and do a much better test”

Rumbough has been a part of dressage in Wellington for 30 years, having helped run a dressage show on the same grounds as the AGDF back when it was the original Palm Beach Polo grounds She has appreciated seeing the sport and the equestrian lifestyle grow in and around Wellington, and now enjoys showing at the AGDF “These grounds are just wonderful because we need facilities like this that have an international atmosphere,” she noted