Centerline Goes to the Olympics:
An Amateur Rider's Journal by Maureen Crump

Robert Dover and Kennedy

Starting with Dover the level of competition was hiked up a notch. The music was trademark Dover in its technically professional quality and audience pleasing creative mix of chosen music. He sets a high standard. It was emotional for me during the Mr. Bo Jangles segment. His choreography was superior to the previous rides in terms of clarity, difficulty, and creativity. He did flying changes into a pirouette; he did a serious extended canter up the centerline; he did pirouette into half pass. You could very definitely see the choreography, nothing was blurry and I would have to say this was the first ride of the day that I could say this about. Dover showed his toughness in this ride and helped his horse. There were two external challenges I was noting during his ride. As I have been commenting the crowd had a number of dressage novices and of course many more for the freestyle. A very large number of the seats behind C were novices. When the horse entered for the salute, the crowd behind C erupted in applause behind the horse. Kennedy thus became a worried right at the start of the test. Robert was able to restore the horse's confidence and ride an excellent test for 78.475 (7th) for the freestyle and 74.713 for 6th place overall. Really good.

Another interesting external influence was the shadow across the ring. The competition started at 3:30 PM with a shadow running the length of the arena from the rail at E. As the afternoon progressed the shadow moved across the arena to B. So the riders were riding in and out of the shadows with the footing changing color. And of course, the wind, but we were all pretty much used to that by freestyle day!

The Surgeon

Hubertus Schmidt and the mare Wansuela Suerte had a very good competition. He continued his correct riding in the freestyle with some of my favorite choreography. He made very interesting use of the quarterline. Sometimes he did his lines of changes while riding straight on the quarterline-- no where to hide on that line! He did half pass to the centerline and then walk from x on the centerline up to the judge. He did flying changes, to half pass, to double pirouette. Watching Mr. Schmidt was a true riding lesson. His quiet secure position on a horse is something you try to burn into your brain!