Wellington, Fla.—Jan. 30

 Arlene “Tuny” Page kicked off her week at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival with a personal best score on Woodstock (72.76%) and on Saturday she closed out the weekend with a win—Woodstock strutted his way to the top of the CDI-W Grand Prix Special with a score of 73.05 percent.

“Honestly, Woodstock is a remarkably good show horse; he gets to the ring; he wants to go he wants to perform,” Page said. “While he’s tight in there sometimes and tense with adrenaline, it is ultimately exactly the horse I want, and I have to keep refining my riding to accommodate that kind of energy. I felt like I got closer with that today than I have before.

“There are so many more points in there; it scares me how many more points there are in this horse,” Page continued. “And I just want to go step by step to get those points.”

Page has been riding Woodstock for just over two years, and finally feels like she is really connecting with the horse. “Every horsemen that you talk to says it takes a year, and it took a year,” Page said. “But now I mean for the 1 1/2 to 2 years, I really feel like he’s mine, and vice versa.”

Woodstock’s former rider in France, Vincent Guilloteau, still follows the horse’s career with earnest, and Page credits him and his wife a lot for brining the horse along to his first few Grand Prixs.

“There’s a great long story behind why they have such a profound relationship with him,” Page said. (Subscribers will be able to read all about it in the Chronicle’s Feb. 15 issue!)

Hot on Page’s heels, and competing in her horse’s very first CDI-W, was Kasey Perry-Glass and Goerklintgaards Dublet who took second on a score of 72.90 percent.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better first CDI with my horse. I mean he was strong, and he was relaxed, maybe not a little bit today in the canter, but throughout the whole weekend he was just really well manageable,” Perry-Glass said. “He’s grown up since last year, and I’m just really lucky to have him.”

Taking third in the Grand Prix Special was Shelly Francis and Danilo. (Francis also took third in Friday night’s Freestyle with Doktor.)

“I’m very happy with them. It’s the first real show for them since the championship a month ago, which seems like months ago,” Francis said, laughing. “So I’ve been getting them a little bit fitter since then, they were not fit, and they feel really quite good.

“I mean Doktor is coming into it pretty accurate, trying not to make too many mistakes,” Francis continued. “And the younger horse Danilo is a little bit—he’s a funny edgy horse, he was a little behind my leg in the Grand Prix, and he was better for this one, so I felt really good about that.”