Blainville, Quebec  – In her final competitive appearance before the equestrian events at the 2008 Olympic Games, Ashley Holzer showed the Canadian audience what she hopes to demonstrate to the Olympic judges in Hong Kong this August. Riding to music from Disney’s Millennium Celebration and the film National Treasure, she and Pop Art delivered a world class FEI Grand Prix freestyle performance that received 77.150%, the highest score in three days of competition at the CDI-W Blainville Summer Classic.

Pop Art, an 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding by Amsterdam owned by Ian and Moreen Nicoll and Rusty Holzer, received scores of nine from several of the five FEI judges for his piaffe and transitions between piaffe and passage. Holzer said that competing at Blainville, which is just north of Montreal, QC, was more valuable for her own Olympic preparations than for Pop Art.

“Honestly, I think this was not so important for my horse, but it was important for me. No matter how experienced you are, it makes a difference if you compete more often,” said Holzer, a Toronto native who lives in New York City. She also took the measure of Pop Art’s readiness in the final weeks before the Olympics, noting, “He’s feeling very fit and happy. He’s in a good place eight weeks out.”

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