Arlene “Tuny” Page has always known that her Hanoverian gelding, Wild One, is a talented athlete with the potential to really compete at the Grand Prix level. But she’s had to convince him step-by-step to trust her and let her ride him when the atmosphere gets exciting.

They were put to the test under the lights at Wellington on the first night of the U.S. Equestrian Federation Freestyle Championships and U.S. League Final for the FEI World Cup, held in Florida, March 17-18.

“I’m tickled because it’s the first time this horse has believed everything I told him,” said Page. They went on to win with a 68.79 percent in the field of eight horse and rider combinations.

The pair put in a solid test without any obvious mistakes. Electronic scoring let the audience know that they were consistently scoring 7s for all their movements.

Their excellent finish was made even more dramatic by a lost hind shoe earlier in the day. Wild One pulled it in his stall, just hours before the competition, but his support crew was right there to replace the shoe and make sure he was OK.

Page was the only one to score the requisite 68 percent necessary to qualify for the World Cup Final. She’ll need 70 percent or better tomorrow night in the freestyle if she hopes to make it to Amsterdam, where the World Cup is being held this April.

“I’m not going to mess with success,” said Page. “I got on him three hours before my test for about half an hour. I’m going to do that again.”

Wild One’s win was a bit of an upset, as Leslie Morse and her Swedish Warmblood stallion, Tip Top 962, had gone into the competition as the heavy favorites. But an uncharacteristic spook at C set them back from the beginning of their test. Tip Top was clearly frightened, perhaps by the giant lights that had been brought in, and refused to go near the end of the arena at first.

“He’s never done that before,” said Morse. “But it won’t be a problem tomorrow night.”

The pair didn’t recover immediately from the disobedience, leading to some mistakes in the first piaffe and the one-tempi changes. But the test improved as Tip Top settled and they ended up placed second (66.5%).

George Williams took third aboard Marnix (65.12%), but he, like most of the field, had no intentions of going to the World Cup even if he qualified. Marnix isn’t quite ready to go into that kind of international arena.

Morse might have wished for a better test with Tip Top, but she couldn’t have asked for more from her other stallion, the Dutch Warmblood, Kingston. Kingston won both the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Special in the regular CDI, both times over Ashley Holzer and Imperioso.

Holzer actually managed to tie with herself in the Grand Prix, when Gambol and Imperisoso received the same score (70.70%). And she put in her usual brilliant test in the Prix St. George with Pop Art to win with a 72 percent over Melissa Jackson on Wellington and Lars Petersen on Dacardo.