Diana and Cealy from Rio

It Couldn’t Have Been Any Better for the U.S. Dressage Riders at the Pan Am Games

Hickey Claims the Gold and Sammis the Silver

It couldn’t have been any better for our dressage riders when at the end of the Freestyle on July 17, Christopher Hickey rode Regent to the Gold Medal and Lauren Sammis rode her 8-year-old Sagacious to the Silver Medal. Yvonne Losos de Muniz aboard Bernstein Las Maris won the Bronze Medal. Our final U.S. rider Katherine Poulin-Neff finished 6th on Brilliant Too.

For the Awards Ceremony when they played the National Anthem I watched as Lauren held back the tears. She was obviously extremely emotional about this victory. Later in the Press Conference at one point her voice cracked as she commented, “The people have been so generous and helpful it’s just been wonderful.” With a bit of shy embarrassment about her tears she jokingly said “no pictures please.”

Once the Press Conference was over I wandered over to Christopher and asked if he had a few moments to chat. I recalled seeing him enter the arena before his ride and was so impressed with his entrance. He entered doing some wonderful passage, a movement that is more advanced than what the Pan American Games requires. But since he wasn’t in the competition arena he was able to show his horse off a bit.

I was curious when I saw that and wanted to know more. Christopher explained his strategy about his horse, his training methods and so much more. He began by talking about the difficult parts. Since he was the last competitor to ride out of the field of 15 riders the day was long.

“I don’t like to sit around and wait,” he explained noting that he kept busy doing things his groom does. “At one point I polished my boots but my groom Meredith normally doesn’t let me do that. “

Eventually it was his turn to warm up in preparation for his ride. As if choreographing a symphony he worked through his routine.

“I warm up my horse very quietly. It is very important to me that I get my horse a little bit fired up. He is quiet by nature, but he does have fire in him but a little bit of his fire is manmade.”

Part of that choreography involves knowing when to light the fire. Christopher does that firing “the last moment before we come into the ring.”

Christopher continued, “He has to be electric to the aids. That horse doesn’t get a long warm up. You can’t expect a horse to be on fire for an hour,” especially for a freestyle as technical as his is.

“I have a very complicated freestyle and when I make a mistake it can go down the drain very quickly because things come up so fast.”

So knowing all this and even making a few minor mistakes Christopher showed the judges and the audience how talented Regent can be when he has just the right balance of fire and relaxation. In the end they agreed with him by giving him the highest mark of the day.