It was all Allison Springer today, Sept. 10, at the Land Rover USEA American Eventing Championships.

Springer, Middleburg, Va., went early in the division, which stretched from 8:08 a.m. to 5:08 p.m., but her score of 35.7 with Arthur held over everyone else’s in the 51-horse advanced division dressage in Fairburn, Ga.

“I was actually a little disappointed after my test,” Springer said. “I had some mistakes that were just pilot error. But I was able to watch it on video later, and he looked great. He was more relaxed today than he has been.”

The pair, fresh off an advanced horse trial win at Richland Park (Mich.) two weeks ago, rode straight into the lead more than 5 points ahead of Phillip Dutton on The Foreman and Becky Holder with Courageous Comet.

The AEC, held at Carl Bouckaert’s Chattahoochee Hills venue, also serves as the mandatory outing for horses and riders vying for the Land Rover U.S. Eventing Team for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. In addition, Canadian selectors are also using the AEC as their mandatory outing. (Names in bold denote U.S. and Canadian short-listed athletes.)

Unsurprisingly, it was these horses who completely dominated the first phase of competition.

Welcome To The Phillip Dutton Show

Dutton and The Foreman logged a 41.5, but their score could be much higher at the WEG if the selectors choose the veteran gelding. “Chip” was quite forward and had some bobbles in the canter work, swapping leads twice in the wrong places, but Dutton said those mistakes were no surprise.

“He walked and trotted well, but I was quite aggressive in the canter because he started to back off a bit,” said Dutton, West Grove, Pa. “Saying I ‘schooled him’ wouldn’t quite be the right words, but I sort of did it on purpose to let him know he can’t back off when he gets in the ring.”

In the morning session, Dutton rode into fourth and a tie for fifth place aboard Woodburn and Connaught, respectively. Both horses put in expressive, correct tests, but the former looked more relaxed in the arena. To Dutton, however, Woodburn’s test was a bit lackluster, and that experience in the morning encouraged him to push for more with The Foreman in the afternoon.

“With Woodburn I was actually a bit disappointed—not in him but in myself,” Dutton said. “I had him going really well in warm-up, and then I let him back off a bit. This test requires you to really have the horse in front of your leg.”

Connaught gave a small spook just before he entered the ring when U.S. Chef d’Equipe Capt. Mark Phillips and team veterinarian Catherine Kohn zipped up in their golf cart to catch the test. That edginess showed in several portions of the test, especially the lead changes near the end, but Dutton held the performance together admirably, and the judges rewarded him.

“I was thrilled with Connaught, because he probably hadn’t had my attention as much as the others,” Dutton admitted. “He doesn’t go that well at home for me, but he does in the ring. He really does enjoy it, and he does his job so well.”

Unlike Dutton’s other short-listed mounts, Connaught is expected to run cross-country. He won the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** in 2008 and represented the United States at the Olympic Games in Hong Kong, but the gelding has scarcely competed since placing seventh at the Rolex Kentucky in 2009, so the selectors would like to see him out on course again.

However, the selectors did excuse The Foreman and Woodburn from running cross-country, as well as Boyd Martin’s Neville Bardos and Remington XXV, and Buck Davidson’s Ballynoe Castle RM and My Boy Bobby. With those horses scratching from the AEC and completing a combined test, many others will move up in the standings tomorrow.

Dutton and Truluck also put in a solid test and scored a 45.3 in the afternoon session for 11th place.

Everyone’s Eyes On Kentucky

Holder’s been working hard to curtail Courageous Comet’s spookiness in the dressage arena, and she said her trouble shooting paid off today. Comet has a tendency to spook at the arena fencing, especially when he kicks footing up onto it and it makes a noise. But today he was brilliant. The pair tied with Dutton and The Foreman on a 41.5.

Holder and Comet will run cross-country tomorrow, and the rider said she has high hopes for the footing, which is currently quite firm, to be softened up enough by then to have a good pre-WEG run.

“One of the most remarkable things I’ve seen in awhile happened yesterday while I was walking the course,” she said. “I passed David O’Connor on ‘The Aggravator’ [the turf aerator machine], and I thought, ‘What’s the Canadian coach doing on The Aggravator? That is not a quick or a fun job.’ And then when I got to the end of the course, I saw him switch off with [U.S. Chef d’Equipe] Mark Phillips. They were tag teaming it. I think that’s a really big statement about how much everyone cares about the horses.”

Karen O’Connor and Mandiba had a mistake in their canter work but still managed to come out in a tie for fifth with Dutton and Connaught on a 42.8. Mandiba, who’s long been quite adept at his lead changes, threw a sneaky one in at the beginning of the canter tour, coming down centerline.

Brandenburg’s Joshua, who scored a 43.8 with Stephen Bradley to tie for seventh, apparently decided he’d like to perform an encore in the dressage arena. He escaped from the wash bay sans halter and gave spectators and competitors a few extra moments of entertainment when he found his way into the main arena and pranced proudly around the three dressage rings.

The crisis was averted, however, when he finally stopped in a corner, and surprisingly, the two tests in progress (one of which was smiling Chattahoochee Hills owner Carl Bouckaert’s, on his preliminary horse Cyrano Z) went on without interruption.

“I think I owe Carl a drink,” Bradley said with a laugh afterward, noting that his runaway potential WEG partner was unharmed.

Boyd Martin and Remington XXV tied with Bradley for seventh, while Will Faudree and Pawlow put in a solid test for ninth.

Kim Severson and Tipperary Liadhnan were riding what looked like a top-three test until the second counter-canter, where the big gray gelding swapped leads; Severson had to bring him back to the walk and re-group. They scored a 44.5 for 10th place.

What’s Up With The Scores?

The incongruity of scoring between judges Linda Zang and Loris Henry didn’t escape many riders, particularly those who found themselves lower down the leaderboard than they expected.

Of the top approximately 15 pairs, Henry consistently scored every horse lower than Zang. Bradley’s scores with Brandenburg’s Joshua, for instance, were more than 11 percentage points apart. Will Faudree and Pawlow’s had a difference of almost 9 percentage points.

About halfway down the leaderboard, however, the judges’ scores began to flip-flop. Zang, at C, used the scoring scale much more liberally than her colleague at E. Overall, she issued scores ranging from 79.00 percent to 49.67 percent, while Henry’s top score was a 73.33 percent and her lowest a 54.00.

Scores were higher in general than some spectators might expect because riders performed FEI Four-Star Test B, not a USEF horse trial test.

Nate Chambers and Rolling Stone II were the highest-placed non-shortlisted pair, finishing 16th in the dressage on a 48.0.

And, Just For Fun…

Announcer Nicho Meredith especially enjoyed himself at 9:33 a.m., when he got to announce that “in the advanced arena, Erika Treis Petersen is riding Under The Influence,” while over in the intermediate, “Susannah Lansdale is riding Buck Naked.” After Lansdale’s ride, which earned a 35.4, he cheekily announced that she was free to put her clothes back on.

Be sure to check out the live scoring website for updates on all divisions of the AEC.

Advanced cross-country begins tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.