Posted March 12, 2006

2006 Cadillac Challenge of the Americas - Page 7

A Big Job for the Judges

The International Judges Panel divided their scoring into three segments, with Lavell marking coordination, Zang marking music and artistic, and Gribbons marking the technical. Assessing the six performances she judged, Gribbons said, “First of all, everybody has really practiced it. They’ve taken it seriously and they have honestly put a lot of work into it. As far as the Pas de Deux, all the judges agreed that first place was definitely Betsy Steiner and her student, Tami Hoag, because they really coordinated their ride.

Photo: Anne Gribbons, Ulla Salzgeber, Leslie Morse

They were right together, which is important in a Pas de Deux. They worked very well together. Those horses were technically very correct. The music for Betsy and Tami was really fun and up and appropriate – it’s okay to use vocals for exhibition. They were right on all the time. They won by a big score and that actually helped the Americans to win overall. It was the Pas de Deux that pulled the win because with the Quadrille, the teams were very close.”

Steiner and Hoag had to pull their Pas de Deux together quickly when the USA team line-up changed – originally Charlotte Bredahl Baker and Leslie Morse were scheduled, but when Baker’s horse Komo developed a skin reaction, she withdrew him. “We got the music on Wednesday at midnight and Thursday, Friday, and today, we practiced as hard as we could,” Steiner explained after her winning performance. “We practiced twice a day.” The two both loved the music from Chicago and based their performance on the track. “Terry Gallo did a fabulous job with the music and really made it fun and sassy. Tami’s two horses are spectacular Grand Prix horses and it was really nice because they work so well side by side – that was extra fun because you could really keep them close and do things nice and tight. It was a whole lot of fun!”

Gribbons also explained the judges’ assessment of the Team Quadrille performances. “We all had the International Team quadrille as number one because they had a lot of surprise moments. In the other quadrilles, we could tell exactly what was coming, but with the International Team, they had everything happening very fast, and a little bit unexpected. They took big risks and they pulled it off and that’s important. Plus they were very synchronized in symmetry.”