Jennifer van de Loo was enjoying her first foray into the FEI levels during the 2014 season—and then she heard about the new division for amateur riders offered at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival. Now the 43-year-old rider is poised for her very first trip down a CDI centerline at this weekend’s Adequan Global Dressage Festival CDI**** in Wellington, Fla.
“It’s only because of the amateur division that I entered,” she said. “When I signed up, I said, ‘How many horses are usually in it?’ And everyone said, ‘Just one or two usually.’ And now there’s six this week! I was like, ‘Oh no.’
“I’m really feeling very nervous,” she continued. “My trainer’s already said, ‘Drink something to take the edge off!’ It’s not about competing with others; I just want to do a good job. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”
But even though it’s her first time in a CDI, riding her own Lanzelot 99, van de Loo is coming off a successful 2014 season. She was second in the adult amateur Prix St. Georges division at the U.S. Dressage Finals (Ky.) last November, and then she sent “Lancey” on the road to Wellington with her trainer, Ally Rogers, in January.
Van de Loo’s been flying back and forth from her Holly Springs, Miss., home base so that she can still work during the week. But the ice storm earlier this week in the Memphis, Tenn., area nearly left her stranded away from her horse before her first CDI.
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“I got stuck on Monday, and they basically closed down the airport,” she said. “I knew I had to get here by Wednesday for the jog, so it was a little interesting.”
Lance and van de Loo are contesting the CDI Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire I this weekend. Van de Loo joked that she’s much more nervous about the I1.
“I don’t like shoulder-in; I don’t know who invented that,” she said with a laugh. “His pirouettes are really strong if I could ride them better. I find riding the full pirouettes quite challenging. But really, it’s amazing and such an honor to be competing here.”
Van de Loo grew up in Germany, even racing as an amateur jockey when she was younger, but never rode dressage in that country. She happily accepted a transfer to California with SAP Software & Solutions about 13 years ago, the company for which she still works, and she never moved back. There she started riding dressage, and she worked up to second level with a horse named Editorial on the West Coast.
“I’d wanted to live abroad because my parents used to live abroad,” said van de Loo, who became a U.S. citizen in 2013. “The Bay area is difficult with horses; it’s hard to find trainers because no one has the land. It’s very expensive. I was living in San Francisco and working in Palo Alto, which is about an hour commute, so I was doing it myself with just one lesson a week.”
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About four years ago, van de Loo moved to Memphis area, “for a boy,” she said. She googled around for a dressage trainer in the area, landing on Ally Rogers of ALR Dressage in Arlington, Tenn., just across the border from van de Loo’s home in Mississippi. She also found Lancey, a now 16-year-old Oldenburg (Lord Sinclair—Simone, Roncalli XX), in Germany four years ago. He’d schooled the upper levels, and he had the right temperament to get van de Loo there as well.
“I’ve been in full training with Ally for about four years, and it’s really amazing the progress you can make in that kind of program. I’m really lucky I found her,” she said. “When I first started riding Lancey, I was still only a second level rider, so I had to work myself up to it. He’s the ideal amateur horse though—everyone says they want to clone him and make 10 Lanceys for their barns. He’s super gentle and very forgiving, and he tries really hard. He’s a very kind horse. He’s just a little bit fat right now.”
Along with Lancey, van de Loo also has her 7-year-old Hanoverian mare Filigree (Fiedertanz—Alexa) in Wellington. The horses head home on Feb. 28, and Van de Loo is still considering her plans for Lancey for the rest of the season.
“I would like to try an Intermediaire II,” she said. “He actually has an amazing passage, and it’s very easy to ride. He gave me my [USDF] bronze and silver medals, and maybe it’s wishful thinking that I could also get my gold, but it would be great. I just love him. He’s 16, so we’re taking it one day at a time.”
Follow along with results from the AGDF classes this weekend.
