Dear Rita,

I can’t believe it’s the middle of March! All of a sudden I looked at my calendar and realized it’s time to start thinking ahead about spring and summer. I would like to go to Gladstone this year to compete in the U.S. Selection Trials, so I have a lot of planning to do.

Cadillac is one of three Grand Prix horses that I would like to take with me to the United States in July. Realistically, since I haven’t raised enough funds to take even one horse on that kind of trip, I will probably have to limit my equine travelling companions to one or two horses. But in any case, I’d like you to get to know Cadillac first.

Cadillac is already qualified for Gladstone in August. Qualification requirements are two international Grand Prix scores coupled with a start in the Grand Prix Special and one in the Grand Prix freestyle. Only scores from the Grand Prix count toward ranking and the top 15 ranked horses get to start in the Selection Trials.

I haven’t looked recently, but I am ranked somewhere around sixth or seventh with Cadillac at the moment, and that ranking is before we drop our lowest score. The drop score is possible when a horse/rider combination turns in more than the required two scores and our lowest score is pretty low (whoopsie!), so I’m sure he will be offered a start in Gladstone.

Cadillac is 13 this year and can finally be considered a made Grand Prix horse instead of a prospect. (That doesn’t mean we have nothing to work on, Rita! We are honing and tuning and polishing every day.) He won eight Grand Prixs last year and broke the 70 percent barrier four times. I’m looking forward to even better results this year.

Cadillac is a horse of extremes. He is either extremely good in what he does, or extremely bad! So of course, I took him along to as many shows as equinely possible last year to work on consistency and routine. I’m proud to say that I learned to manage him in a variety of different atmospheres and venues, which, when you are riding a horse who is afraid of his own shadow, is no easy task.

But Cadillac has matured with time, travel and training. In 2009, we showed under spotlights at Cannes and Vidauban, in the ever-daunting Deutsche Bank Stadium at Aachen, under the wind-whipped flags of Hickstead, and live in front of 5,000 people and the Eurosport cameras at London.

I will not say that my super-sensitive horse has gotten over all the distractions that come up at horse shows, but he has become surprisingly accepting of them. In November at Stuttgart, for instance, I was the first to start in the GPS and thus the first to enter the warm-up arena, which was unfortunately still full of vaulting teams who were finishing up their competition.

Cadillac was fascinated by the horses dressed up in white who just kept cantering around the circles no matter how many people ran at them and flipped onto their backs. He had a good hard stare at a three-girl pyramid that slowly broke apart with individual somersaults to the ground. The stretching mats lined up around the outside of the warm-up were of great interest until my groom pulled one onto track, and I rode him over there to step on it. (Don’t ask, Rita.) He was fine with them after that.

Last May in Munich was also exciting in that we had to ride past several four-in-hand hitches to get from the dressage stabling to the arenas. Fortunately, Cadillac has learned to follow my groom on her bicycle for any sort of long distance trekking. So as long as he can put his nose just over her back tire and keep trotting, he is just fine with that kind of stuff. If she stops or falls off the bike, we have a bit of a problem.

At Christmastime, getting through the hanging plastic curtain which separates the warm-up from the competition arena at Mechelen was a piece of cake. Everybody else waited for the curtain to be pulled aside. Cadillac just walked straight through the plastic strips and let them float over both our bodies as we passed. Then, two minutes later, he stopped in the middle of our Grand Prix test to stare at some new lights near the entrance. He is a thorough photographer. Big sigh.

In any case, Rita, I worked out a lot of kinks with my super-talented horse. We are gearing up now for the outdoor season in Europe after a winter of less work and lots of cold. He is the first one I intend to put on the plane in the first week of July. Where we will camp for the month of preparation before Gladstone remains to be seen. I have a lot to plan!

I’m Catherine Haddad, and I’m sayin it like it is from Vechta, Germany.

Training Tip of the Day: Ride as if nobody is watching.

http://internationaldressage.com/