Wellington, FL – January 17, 2014 – The Adequan Global Dressage Festival is now accepting entries from riders for invitations to the AGDF 5 CDI 4*, presented by The Dutta Corp. and Havensafe Farm, which will run February 6-9, 2014, at The Stadium at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center (PBIEC).

Riders that wish to be considered as invitees should submit their entry as soon as possible indicating their desire to be selected for the CDI 4* competition. Invitations will be reviewed by the show committee, who will then extend invitations. Once the desired number of entries have been reached for the 4*, the remaining riders will then move to the 3* to continue their showing experience with AGDF.

In order to ensure a safe and healthy horse show environment for all of the equine competitors of the AGDF, health certificates will be required for every horse arriving at the showgrounds at PBIEC. With horses arriving from both international and domestic points of origin, up-to-date health certificates are a necessity to ensure the welfare of all of the horses competing at the AGDF. For more information on health certificates, please refer to the AGDF prize lists that are posted online at www.globaldressagefestival.com or call Palm Beach Equine Clinic at 561-793-1599.

For more information, please contact Lloyd Landkamer at llandkamer@aol.com.

We look forward to receiving your entry and wish you the best of luck!

About the Adequan Global Dressage Festival:

The Adequan Global Dressage Festival (AGDF) is one of the world’s largest international and national dressage circuits featuring 8 FEI Dressage events, including a 5* and the only FEI Nations’ Cup Series CDIO in the Western Hemisphere. The AGDF offers more than $400,000 in prize money for the six international competitions, making it one of the richest circuits in the world. The Stadium at Palm Beach International Equestrian Center facility includes the Van Kampen covered arena (made possible by Kimberly and Frederic Boyer and family) and four outdoor arenas with world-class footing, 200 permanent stalls, and a VIP seating area for the International Arena fully catered for relaxing and having an enjoyable experience.

Please visit
www.globaldressagefestival.com
www.equestriansport.com
or call 561-793-5867 for more information.

Adequan Global Dressage Festival is located at
13500 South Shore Blvd, Wellington, Florida 33414

Jennifer Wood Media, Inc.
Equestrian Public Relations
info@jenniferwoodmedia.com

Diane Creech and Devon L in the Grand Prix Freestyle at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival 1 CDI-W. Photo by Susan J. Stickle.

Wellington, FL – January 17, 2014 – Canadian Grand Prix dressage rider Diane Creech was pleased with the two horses she brought out at the start of the 2014 show season for the Adequan Global Dressage Festival 1 CDI-W, sponsored by MTICA Farm and Everglades Dressage.

Devon L, a 14-year-old Hanoverian gelding (De Niro X Wilbranda X Wolkenstein II), placed fourth in the Grand Prix Freestyle on Friday night with a 72.300 percent and earned a 65.880 percent in the Grand Prix on Thursday.

Chrevis Christo, a 11-year-old Danish Warmblood gelding (Lavallo X Chrevi’s La Vi X Natador), earned the blue ribbon and a red ribbon in his entrée to the Intermediaire II level at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival 1 National Show. Both horses are owned by Doug and Louise Leatherdale of Leatherdale Farms.

Creech and Devon L unveiled a technically difficult freestyle Friday night with new music and choreography created by Karen Robinson.

“He was quite spectacular,” Creech said. “It was a beautiful, big atmosphere. Devon is starting to like the freestyle. He really gets into it now. I took very calculated risks on the movement and it all paid out. He was really with me and, with the difficulty built into the pattern, it was very well executed.”

She was pleased with the electric atmosphere and the large crowd at the first Friday night freestyle. She was especially grateful to her local friends who came to support her.

“After x/halt/salute, they were yelling and screaming and so happy for me,” she said. “It’s really cool to have friends here. I don’t see them all year, but they all come.”

Diane Creech and Devon L. Photo by Mary Adelaide Brakenridge

Her fan club will be there en force when she rides Devon L in the Adequan Global Dressage Festival 3 CDI-W later this month. She has mapped out a training strategy for the show including studying the video of her freestyle, focusing on where she can make things better and visualizing the test.

“It’s a very good training tool to visualize,” she said. “You can’t keep riding the horse through the freestyle, so you visualize it. Then, you ride it and improve it.”

She was also pleased with Chrevis Christo’s debut in his first Intermediaire II.

“It was his first show since last summer,” she said. “He’s ready to be at the level. He just needs a bit more mileage and a bit more experience, but he’s the real thing!”

Creech and her trainer, Lars Petersen, brought the horse up through the levels and they are looking forward to watching him develop. Petersen intently watches her competition and rides every stride from the ground.

“He is an incredible trainer and person,” she said. “It is wonderful to work with him because he’s engaged and enthusiastic.”

Essential to the team are the horse owners, Doug and Louise Leatherdale of Leatherdale Farms. Creech said she sent them the videos of her rides and they were ecstatic over the outcome and the progress the horses have made.

“Without them I wouldn’t be anywhere,” she said. “They are the first ones after the show to congratulate me.”

Creech plans to show two other Leatherdale Farms horses this weekend at the Gold Coast Dressage Opener Festival CDI*: Hallmark 3, a 10-year-old Hanoverian by the Leatherdales’ late stallion, His Highness, and Diana C, a 7-year-old mare by the Leatherdales’ top Hanoverian stallion, Damsey. She finds the frequent shows in the Wellington area make it ideal for her to compete her horses and then give them a rest before they begin again.

‘They all get to have their turns and have the experience and then get a break and then go out and do it again,” she said.

“The horses always come first,” she said about Team Leatherdale/Creech/Petersen. “It’s really teamwork and I’m so fortunate to be part of the partnership between all of us.”

About Leatherdale Farms
Situated 20 minutes from Minneapolis, MN, Leatherdale Farms is a privately owned farm owned and managed by Louise and Doug Leatherdale and dedicated to Hanoverian, Trakehner and Oldenburg breeding. The Leatherdale family owns several licensed stallions based in Germany at Hengstation Jens Meyer: Hanoverians Dorum, the premium elite, Damsey (Dressage Royal), First Dance (Florestan II), Rob Roy (Rubin Royale), Hampton (His Highness), Beltano (Belissimo M); the premium elite Trakehner, Herzensdieb (Tambour); and the Oldenburg Fairbanks (Flemmingh). Frozen semen is available in North America and Europe. Leatherdale Farms was also the owner of the Licensing Hanoverian stallion His Highness, who died in 2007 and whose progeny is much appreciated all over the world.

To learn about Leatherdale Farms stallions in Europe, go to www.jens-meyer.com.

For more information, go to www.leatherdalefarms.com.

Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/leatherdalefarmsworld.

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Phelps Media Group, Inc. International
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Sue Weakley for Phelps Media Group, Inc. International

MEDIA CONTACT:
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Lexington, Ky. – The USEF and USET Foundation have come together in 2014 through a gift from USET Foundation Trustee Betsy Juliano and Havensafe Farm to host the first ever USEF/USET Foundation Dressage Pipeline Clinic, January 28-29, 2014 at the Global Dressage Grounds in Wellington, Fla. This clinic will showcase the U.S. dressage pipeline of athletes and horses with the four USEF Dressage Coaches: Robert Dover, USEF Chef d’Equipe/Technical Advisor; Debbie McDonald, USEF Developing Coach; Scott Hassler, USEF Young Horse Coach; and Jeremy Steinberg, USEF Youth Coach.

The following 12 athlete/horse combinations will participate in the two-day training session:

Kaitlin Blythe with her own and Thomas Blythe’s Daverden
Nadine Buberl with Martin Sosnoff and Cesar Parra’s Fashion Designer OLD
Rachel Chowanec with Lendon Gray’s Embrujado XI
Bebe Davis with Michael Davis’ Rotano
Catherine Haddad-Staller with her own Montrachet
Kim Herslow with Kiroli Enterprises, LLC’s Rosmarin
Matt Johnson with his own Petersborg’s Qasanova
Anna Marek with AJ Stapleton’s Elian
Silva Martin with the Rosa Cha W Syndicate’s Rosa Cha W
Cesar Parra with Michael and Sarah Davis’ Van the Man
Caroline Roffman with her own Her Highness O
Lauren Sammis with Hope Greenfield’s Lombardo V

“I am looking forward to our upcoming Pipeline Clinic, along with our other U.S. Coaches,” said Dover. “This clinic will demonstrate, using world-class Young Riders, Young Horses, Developing, and Elite International combinations, our commitment to excellence in training from the bottom to the top of the sport. I hope our community will come out in large numbers to support our program and am certain trainers, amateurs, and children attending will go home having no less than one ‘Aha’ moment. Proceeds from this clinic will go back into our High Performance Programs.”

The clinic will demonstrate the harmonization of the various coaching programs as the coaches work in pairs with riders from their respective programs. The clinic will kick off each day with rider fitness sessions, followed by individual mounted training sessions and finishing with afternoon Sports Psychology sessions. Additionally, riders, as well as the horse owners and trainers of the invited riders, will participate in an evening discussion on media, owner, and sponsor relations, led by a panel of experts in those fields.

The training sessions of the USEF/USET Foundation Dressage Pipeline Clinics will be open to auditors; applications are available on USEF website:https://www.usef.org/_IFrames/breedsDisciplines/discipline/allDressage.aspx.

For additional information or questions, please contact Jenny Van Wieren-Page, Managing Director of Dressage, by calling (859) 225-6949 or via email at jvanwieren@usef.org.

WASHINGTON (Jan. 16, 2014) — The spending bill passed this evening by the Senate, and that cleared the House yesterday, includes a provision that halts any efforts to resume slaughtering horses for human consumption on U.S. soil. The legislation, which President Obama will sign in the coming days, forbids spending by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on inspections at U.S. horse slaughter plants, reinstating a ban on domestic horse slaughter for the fiscal year and saving taxpayers an estimated expense of $5 million. The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society Legislative Fund now call on Congress to pass a permanent ban on domestic horse slaughter with the Safeguard American Food Exports Act, H.R. 1094 / S. 541, which would also end the export of American horses for slaughter abroad.

Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, said: “We Americans care for horses, we ride horses, and we even put them to work.  But we don’t eat horses in the United States.  And we shouldn’t be gathering them up and slaughtering them for people to eat in far-off places.”

“We stopped slaughtering horses on U.S. soil in 2007, and it’s the right policy to continue that prohibition. We hope that all parties associated with this issue can agree to stop the inhumane export of live horses to Canada and Mexico, and protect all American horses from a disreputable, predatory industry.”

The HSUS also thanks the sponsors of the amendment addressing horse slaughter, Reps. Jim Moran, D-Va., and the late Bill Young, R-Fla., and Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Background:

• A similar spending prohibition had been put in place in 2005, however it was not renewed in 2011, opening the door for horse slaughter plants to reopen on U.S. soil. Efforts underway in to open horse slaughterhouses in New Mexico, Missouri and Iowa have been met with strong public opposition.
• The Humane Society of the United States joined with several animal protection organizations and individuals to file suit against USDA to block those facilities from opening.
• American horses are raised to be companions, athletes and work horses. They are often treated with drugs, both legal and illegal, that can endanger the food supply. There is currently no system in the U.S. to track medications and veterinary treatments given to horses throughout their lives to ensure that their meat is safe for human consumption.
• The methods used to kill horses rarely result in quick, painless deaths, as horses often endure repeated blows to render them unconscious and can remain conscious during the slaughtering process. When horse slaughter plants previously operated in the U.S., the USDA documented severe injuries to horses, including broken bones and eyeballs hanging from a thread of skin.
• The Safeguard American Food Exports Act, H.R. 1094 / S. 541, introduced this year by U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Reps. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., is a bipartisan measure that would outlaw horse slaughter operations in the U.S., end the current export of American horses for slaughter abroad, and protect the public from consuming toxic horse meat.
• Polling from 2012 shows that 80 percent of the American public opposes the slaughter of horses for human consumption, and this opposition spans across all partisan, regional, and gender lines.

Media Contact: Stephanie Twining: 240-751-3943, stwining@humanesociety.org

Lexington, KY - The United States Federation (USEF) has named Kai Handt as the U.S. Para-Equestrian Dressage Chef d’Equipe/Technical Advisor. The Search Committee, chaired by Eric Straus, USEF Para-Equestrian Eligible Athlete Committee, and USEF Para-Equestrian High Performance Committee recommended Handt for this position.

Handt (Wylie, Texas) has a great depth of experience in the equestrian world as a competitor, trainer, and coach. Since August of 1985, Handt has owned and managed the North Texas Equestrian Center, which hosts lesson and boarding programs in addition to training equestrians of all levels in the dressage, jumping, and para-equestrian dressage disciplines. Handt has had one or more of his students compete at the USEF Para-Equestrian Dressage National Championship since 2009, as well as having riders he has coached and trained compete at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games and the 2012 Paralympic Games.

Aiken, SC (January 16, 2014) - For a second consecutive year, Massachusetts-based Mary Lauritsen, with Windhorse Dressage, rode away with the Custom Saddlery Most Valuable Rider (MVR) Award at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival 1 CDIW and National Show.

Riding Kathy Hickerson and Majestic Gaits’ 17-hand, nine year-old Hanoverian stallion Schroeder (Sandrohit x SPS Esmeralda), Lauritsen delivered a 64.474% in their FEI Intermediare I 2009 Open test and maintained the charismatic stallion’s consistency (61.842%) when they returned to Palm Beach International Equestrian Center to move up a level and perform the FEI Prix St. Georges 2009 test.

“I have been using Custom Saddles for several years, but when we switched to the Wolfgang Solo about midway through last season it made a huge difference for his back and he’s been much more open in his shoulders,” said Lauritsen, who has been working with Schroeder since last April.

“The Wolfgang Solo Custom saddle has been wonderful. He feels really free underneath and very comfortable,” she said, clearly happy with the big stallion’s debut at both the Intermediare I and Prix St Georges level.

This is also the second consecutive season that the MVR Award, the brainchild of Cary Wallace, the popular Master Saddlefitter behind Aiken, SC-based Custom Saddlery, has been part of the AGDF.  It recognizes riders who go the extra mile or add something special to the show whether through exceptional performance, horsemanship or teamwork.

All MVR Award winners receive an embroidered Custom Saddlery saddle pad and at the conclusion of the CDI circuit, will join a list of 2014 Custom Saddlery MVR’s automatically entered to win the MVR Grand Prize: a new saddle from the company respected for a quarter of a century as one of the most innovative saddle makers in the dressage world.

The Adequan Global Dressage Festival is the world’s largest international and national dressage circuit featuring 8 CDIs, including five CDI-Ws, one 4* and one 5*, the only non-championship CDIO Nations’ Cup in the Western Hemisphere, as well as weekly U.S. National events now through March 30.

Custom Saddlery is a proud sponsor of Most Valuable Riders throughout their dressage community. For more information on Custom Saddlery visit their website at www.mysaddle.com.

Lexington, KY – The United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) is pleased to announce the USEF Para-Equestrian Dressage National Championship will be held June 2-5, 2014 at the USET Foundation Headquarters in Gladstone, N.J. This championship will also serve as the Selection Trial for the 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games U.S. Para-Equestrian Dressage Team.

At the USEF Para-Equestrian Dressage National Championship and Selection Trial all horse-and-rider combinations will complete the FEI Individual Championship Test, the FEI Team Test, and FEI Musical Freestyle in their respective grade.