Elite pairs in spotlight for this week’s FEI World Cup Dressage Final in Omaha

That reality hit home for Defending FEI World Cup Dressage champion Hans Peter Minderhoud late last week when he was forced to pull out of this week’s World Cup Final in Omaha, Nebraska due to an injury of his elite mount, Glock’s Flirt de Lully. The rider from the Netherlands said he noticed that Flirt was lame just hours before the pair were scheduled to fly to the United States. “His walk was not good,” Minderhoud told Dressage News. “We took him to the vet and he is injured.” He added that he was “totally devastated” not to be going to Omaha for the 32nd edition of the competition. “So sorry for that but horses first!”

Minderhoud — along with other pairs such as American Laura Graves with Verdades and Steffen Peters with Rosamunde — was one of the favourites among the 18 riders listed for the Dressage Final at the CenturyLink Center, which will take place alongside the Longines FEI World Cup Jumping Final. While he and Glock’s Flirt are currently ranked 11th in the world, the pair had developed a new musical Freestyle Grand Prix that has been drawing praise. And for proof, the duo triumphed over German Dressage star Isabell Werth — the most decorated equestrian in Olympic history — and Emilio 107 with the new routine earlier this month in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

This Thursday’s Dressage Grand Prix in the early afternoon in Omaha will thus take place with one fewer combination, and not just any combination. Indeed, Minderhoud and Glock’s Flirt’s absence will open the route to the podium a little wider for World No.1 Werth, whose Weihegold Old was among 37 horses — with 12 dressage mounts — who arrived just before noon Saturday at Eppley Airfield in Omaha and taxied to a cargo area near the terminal after a 10.5 hour flight from Amsterdam.

Accompanying Weihegold on the star-studded Qatar Airways Boeing 777 airliner were fellow competitors such as Carl Hester’s Nip Tuck and Edward Gal’s Glock’s Voice. Their arrival was reportedly the first landing of foreign horses in Omaha, and Nebraska governor Pete Ricketts and Lisa Roskens of the Omaha Equestrian Foundation were among the officials on hand to welcome the horses. 

Of note: also not on the flight were Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and her mount Unee BB, suffering from colic. It was to be the last competition of the German rider, third in Las Vegas in 2015 and Gothenburg in 2016, before she takes maternity leave.

According to the local newspaper, The Omaha World-Herald, upon arrival the elite horses first went through customs where blood samples were drawn by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Subsequently, the star mounts received a police escort in their trailers all the way to the CenturyLink Center before going into quarantine. Another group of horses was scheduled to arrive in the American Midwest from Palm Beach, Florida on Monday.

The schedule for Dressage in Omaha is as follows:

THURSDAY, MARCH 30
Session 2 Dressage: FEI World Cup Dressage Grand Prix at 2:00 p.m. local time
SATURDAY, APRIL 1
Session 5 Dressage: FEI World Cup Dressage Final (Dressage Freestyle to Music) – (the event determining the FEI World Cup Final 2017 winner)- competition begins at 2:00 p.m.