A Grand Prix novice is taking on the establishment.

A horse that wins everything at Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire I may not be one that excels at Grand Prix. You never really know how things will turn out until you try the ultimate level of dressage.

Lauren Sammis hoped Sagacious HF would fulfill the promise he showed in the small tour, but that hope became a reality when the pair took home a CDI-W Grand Prix Special win (66.79%) at the Palm Beach Dressage Derby in Loxahatchee, Fla., Feb. 26-March 1. Sammis also bagged second place in the Grand Prix for the Special (64.46%) behind Michael Barisone and Olympus.

Although neither Grand Prix test was mistake-free, Sagacious showed moments of brilliance, including a world-class passage.

“Right now, what we’re really working on is that he’s getting stronger and more confident,” said Sammis. “There’s such a difference from the small tour to Grand Prix in the strength and endurance the horse needs.”

Sammis and Sagacious represented the United States at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they took home team gold and individual silver. After the Pan Am Games, where the Prix St. Georges is the team test, Sammis knew Sagacious would soon be ready to start the Grand Prix, but he wouldn’t be confirmed enough for the Olympic Games.

So Sammis, 38, took a different path and gave birth to twins, Aiden and Ryan, in July of 2008.

“I always knew I wanted to be a mother,” said Sammis. “I had a horse that could do all the Grand Prix, so I could take a little bit of time off with him. He has a real future for the country, and to have him long term is my goal, so it seemed like a good time.”

She currently lives in the Wellington, Fla., home of Al Guden, Sagacious’ owner, and has a full-time nanny to make her schedule work with the babies. Her partner, Melanie Summers, travels down on the weekends from New Jersey to be with her family.

“Al has gone beyond and above what any owner would have ever done. Life couldn’t be better right now. I’m so fortunate that I’ve got this horse, and I’m so lucky I get to do this. I also have these beautiful babies at home. I want to pinch myself,” said Sammis.

She contested an Intermediaire II in 2008 before she got pregnant, and then she brought Sagacious out for their first Grand Prix in January of 2009 at the Wellington Classic Dressage Challenge.

Sammis, an experienced horse-sales professional, had ridden many Grand Prix horses and trained horses to Grand Prix, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to show Grand Prix before.

“It’s fitting that my first Grand Prix should be on Sagacious,” she said. “I started with the Ferrari.”

It’s also fitting that Sagacious start showing his full potential now. The Palm Beach Dressage Derby usually showcases the best horse-and-rider combinations on the East Coast, but this year scores were low in the Grand Prix classes. With the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games looming in Kentucky in 2010, there’s a real need for some rising stars to appear on the scene in U.S. dressage.

Sammis ascribed Sagacious’ mistakes in the Grand Prix to a combination of inexperience and fatigue. The 10-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding (Welt Hit II—Judith) popped up and out in the piaffe in both Grand Prix tests and had mistakes in the one-tempi changes. He also broke to canter during the extended trot in the Special.

“Sagacious offers and offers. Sometimes he offers to the point where he’s so physically exhausted that he
doesn’t know what to do,” said Sammis. “He was trying above and beyond what he’s ready and capable of doing. I think his muscles got sore and tired and burning, and he got a little worried about that.”

She blamed the errors in the one-tempis on herself.

“He gets giant, huge passage, and he’s trying, and then he realizes he’s in way over his head in the piaffe,” explained Sammis. “In the long run, when I need that, it’s going to give me that little bit of extra. He puts all his heart out there. When I tried to make it dull and boring, more manageable to ride, he was saying, ‘Let me get bigger.’ That will be great when we have the experience. I don’t quite know how to manage it yet.”

Sammis is aiming Sagacious for the Collecting Gaits Farm/U.S. Equestrian Federation Grand Prix Championship in June. She’s been working with Canadian Olympian Ashley Holzer.

A Big Comeback

While Sammis is just beginning to compete Grand Prix, Arlene “Tuny” Page and Wild One are very familiar with that level. They debuted the Grand Prix in 2005 and then were alternates for the FEI World Equestrian Games in 2006 after competing at the FEI World Cup Final in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

However, maintaining the Grand Prix can be a bigger challenge than achieving it, and Page spent last year reassessing her program when her scores weren’t up to par. Her new plan paid off with a big win in the Grand Prix freestyle aboard Wild One (71.45%).

“I needed a little more space to mull things over and assess things. I gypped myself of that,” said Page. “He’s incredibly sensitive, and if you’re not respectful, he gets blocked. It sounds so obvious, but good training makes him better. If I ride really well, he goes better.”

Page, 52, said she’s benefited from “hashing things out” with trainer and coach Oded Shimoni. “I’m not always the most reflective,” she said. “I grab the bit in my teeth and go. He helps crystallize things for me.”

Robert Dover also keeps an eye on her at times when he’s training at Page’s Still Point Farm in Wellington, Fla.

“It’s important for me to have people on the ground,” said Page. “I’m so satisfied when it feels harmonious. With this horse, harmonious isn’t enough for international competition. I have to push without becoming tense.”

One thing that has improved Wild One’s performance is being conscientious about his workload. “I made a mistake in the Grand Prix. I was on him too long, and he ran out of gas in the canter tour,” said Page.

For the freestyle, she shortened her warm-up significantly and said the test had a great feel. One of the benefits of knowing her horse so well is that she can ride a much riskier freestyle with the 13-year-old Hanoverian (Wanderer—Graefin).

“In the past I had to do a freestyle with Wild One that kept things under control. Now he’s very seasoned. I can do a freestyle that’s a lot more forward,” said Page.

She chose music that Marlene Whitaker originally put together for Claire, Page’s retired Grand Prix mount.

“We never used it because she got injured,” explained Page. “Marlene Whitaker is a magician. She made it work. It starts with an extension, and then you have two canter extensions to pirouettes. It works well for him. The music is Scottish and Celtic.”

A Developing Partnership

Leonberg is another horse who knows the Grand Prix well, but it’s taken Mikala Münter Gundersen some time to build a relationship with him. She took over the ride on the 15-year-old Zweibrucker in 2007 from Cesar Parra, but he’d been out of the show ring for a while with an injury.

“We started the Grand Prix last year, but now he’s getting stronger,” she said. “When I have young horses, I know them because I have worked with them up the levels. With this horse, I’ve had to get to know him and all his strengths and weaknesses as we’re doing Grand Prix.”

Now it appears that Gundersen, 40, has hit her stride with Horses Unlimited’s stallion, as their results have improved with every show this season. She capped off her Derby experience by winning the Grand Prix for the freestyle (68.42%) and placing second in the freestyle (71.10%).

“If you look at his scores, they just go up,” said Gundersen. “He tries so hard it’s unbelievable. He gives you his whole heart.”

Gundersen comes from Denmark but now makes her home in Wellington, Fla. She rides with Lisa Wilcox.

She couldn’t have been happier with her Grand Prix test. “It all felt really good today. He’s a very sensitive horse, but now we completely trust each other,” she said.

“Leo” has a bit of a reputation for his high-spirited antics on the ground and around the outside of the show ring, but Gundersen reported that he settles down the moment they head down centerline. “In the ring it feels like he’ll do anything I ask. He listens 100 percent,” she said.

His sensitivity showed in the freestyle when gusting winds left him in a state of high alert. “He was stressed in his stall because of the wind blowing,” said Gundersen. “I went out very early because he wouldn’t settle down in his stall. I had a lot of nice stuff in my freestyle, but there was a mistake at the end of the one-tempis. He had nice pirouettes—we’ve been working hard on them, but there were too many transition mistakes because he was tired. I can do it much cleaner.”