Adrienne Lyle and Harmony’s Duval ©SusanJStickle.
Wellington, FL – March 19, 2021 – Week ten of the 2021 Adequan® Global Dressage Festival (AGDF) continued on Friday, March 19, at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center (PBIEC) in Wellington, FL with a winning ride for Adrienne Lyle (USA) and Harmony’s Duval in the FEI Grand Prix Freestyle CDIO3*, presented by Stillpoint Farm.
Lyle and Harmony’s Duval, Duval Partners LLC’s 2008 KWPN gelding by Rousseau, conquered the freestyle under the lights, riding to a score of 80.020%. “It was worth staying up past my bedtime!” she joked.
“There’s really nothing that compares to riding at Global on a Friday Night Stars,” continued Lyle. “It’s one of my favorite experiences in the horse world. To do this on Duval, who we had from when he was unbroke, all the way up to becoming an individual gold medalist here, is just really special. I’ve got an unbelievable group of owners that have supported me along the way.”
Lyle noted that her freestyle is from her previous mount Wizard in 2011 at Dressage at Devon, but thought it would fit well for her mount’s second ever freestyle.
“I wanted to go back to something I knew since Duval has done one freestyle in his life, so I could give him a good experience out there,” she explained.
Lyle and the gelding produced top performances all week, achieving the highest scores in both the grand prix and grand prix special before contesting the freestyle. “I started with the canter work with him [when planning the degree of difficulty]” she remarked. “I think he’s got some fun, powerful canter work. It’s not the most difficult freestyle out there nowadays. When I made it, they didn’t have the degree of difficulty score the way that they do now. But it still has double pirouettes [and] piaffe pirouettes, so it gets enough [degree of difficulty points]. I think it’s a really fun one; it doesn’t always have to be for him the most difficult every time he goes out.”
For more information and results, please visit www.GlobalDressageFestival.com.