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Laid-back gelding rises to the occasion at the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships *H&H Plus*

Polly Bryan Polly Bryan

    • Find out which young rider clinched a very close medium silver title at the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships – in the same week as getting her A level results

    “I could have cried after that test,” said Florence Human, winner of a very close Theraplate UK medium silver class at the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships 2020.

    The 18-year-old from Somerset partnered the nine-year-old Fürstenball x Don Bedo I son Fulgencio to post 68.78% to claim her first national title, having been elementary freestyle reserve champion at the winter championships in 2019.

    “I’m so proud of ‘Dylan’ – I’ve never felt him like that before,” said Florence. “He was so calm and focused. We have been working on his medium trot recently, and that really came off. In fact, everything came together in there.”

    Florence reported that the bay gelding can be rather lazy.

    “We’ve worked hard to get him more off my leg – we’ve used lots of treats to reward the good bits,” she said.

    “Towards the start of the lockdown I found it harder to stay motivated, but we’ve made lots of progress over the past couple of months.”

    This win caps an exciting week for Florence, who recently received the A level results she needed to study biomedical science next year at the University of Bristol.

    ‘He really let me push him’

    The medium silver proved to be one of the closest classes of the Winter Dressage Championships 2020 so far, with the top four combinations all finishing with 1% of each other.

    Yesterday’s joint elementary silver champion, Chelsea Tolhurst, snatched the runner-up spot today with 68.15%. She rode the eight-year-old Chagal son Hermitage De Jeu, whom she has had since a four-year-old.

    “He can be very spooky but I was really pleased with his rideability today. He felt so nice and he really let me push him in the last extensions.

    “We are starting to work at prix st georges (PSG) at home, and I’d like to take him as far as possible. We have spent so long working on the basics, which is all starting to pay off now.”

    Keep up with all of the action from the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships on the Horse & Hound website via our H&H Plus service with full reports from each winter championship class, plus a gallery of winners from the Petplan Equine Area Festival Championships.

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