Great Britain’s Susan Pape and Harmony’s Eclectisch made it two-for-two in the opening week of the 2025 Adequan® Global Dressage Festival (AGDF) in Wellington, FL, topping the CDI3* Grand Prix Special, sponsored by Havensafe Farm, with 69.021%. Wellington International hosts seven weeks of CDI competition and weekly national shows throughout AGDF, finishing March 30.
Locally-based Kevin Kohmann (USA) was runner-up riding Diamante Farms’ 14-year-old Bordeaux x Olivi mare Giulietta to 68.128%, capping a good week for the German-born rider, who finished first or second in all four of his CDI tests. Another team Harmony Sporthorses rider, Michael Klimke (GER), finished third with 62.809%. He rode Harmony’s Zomancier (Zonik x Fürst Romancier), who was bred at Paul Schockemohle’s Gestüt Lewitz. The 11-year-old gelding was contesting just his second CDI and making his international big tour debut this week.
Pape, who was the pathfinder in the class, was happy with the feeling that Eclectisch, a 16-year-old by Zenon x Olivi gave her in the grand prix, and noted that he is now more focused in the ring since being gelded in the summer of 2024.
“I wanted to have that same feeling again and he was a little bit spooky with the camera today—I’m not sure why,” she said. “I wanted to make sure he didn’t throw in some ones-times right after the right pirouette like in the grand prix, so I leaned to the right and that part was maybe not so pretty, but for the rest I was very satisfied. His half-passes are really good and his changes are nice and big. The weakest point is probably the piaffe, but we can live with that given the quality of the rest.
“He’s really focused now. Life is easier now that he’s a gelding; he was good before but now in the warm-up I can walk on a loose rein—before that wasn’t possible, and he’d get really tight, so it’s all much more relaxed for both of us,” explained Pape, who has been competing at AGDF for a decade. “Even in his appearance he didn’t lose anything being gelded—he still has a big neck and a big butt and a big belly! I don’t need to teach him anything, we just want to have fun.”
AGDF suits Eclectisch so well that he has contested all 16 of his latest international tests there, last competing elsewhere in the Nations Cup™ at CHIO Aachen in Germany, where Pape is based, in 2022.
Pape has two other horses to compete at the 2025 AGDF: the 14-year-old Jazz mare Harmony’s Giulilanta, who has just one CDI grand prix under her belt, and the untested eight-year-old Shiraz (by Sezuan x San Remo OLD), who Pape hopes to debut in the national classes.
“I’ve found that when I bring horses here for the season they learn so much in such a short period of time,” she said. “You have lots of space, the weather is great, you’re outside all the time and you spend more time with the horses. All the horses I’ve brought here over the years have improved so much in these three months.”
Click here for full results from the CDI3* FEI Grand Prix Special, sponsored by Havensafe Farm.
Dressage competition in AGDF1 concludes on Sunday, January 12, with the CDI1* Intermediate I Freestyle class, an FEI Young Riders Freestyle and an Amateur FEI Intermediate B. For more information and results, and to watch all the classes in the Equestrian Village International Ring on live stream, visit www.globaldressagefestival.com.
More from News:
