Homebred Arden Janeway Tops the USEF/USEA Developing Horse National Championship CCI2*YH-S
Leesburg, Va.—Oct. 12—Sharon White was all smiles upon the conclusion of her cross-country round in the USEF/USEA Developing Horse National Championships CCI2*YH-S with Arden Janeway. They added just 7.6 seconds of time to their dressage score to clinch the win on a score of 39.0 in the 6-year-old mare’s second two-star outing.
“She was very keen in the warm up, which was great,” said White of their cross-country round today. “It was a fairly intense course; it caused enough issues, but ‘Jane’ was great. She absolutely just attacked it.”
White and Jane’s owner Anita Antenucci, who co-bred the American Warmblood mare (Jaguar Mail x Freespirit) knew that this year’s young horse championship was going to be the big goal of Jane’s season. Winning it was icing on the cake of a year spent preparing Jane for the upper echelons of the sport.
“This was the goal of the year, so it's really nice to have achieved the goal. Anita, who bred her and owns her, actually sponsors the class so it’s a really amazing, beautiful thing. As Anita said, I just saved her a bunch of prize money,” said White with a laugh.
“It means a lot because we really believe in the classes,” she continued. “[Jane] had a really good experience, and she'll be better for it. I feel like it upped her game a bit, and it's nice when she fought for it. It tells you a lot about them. And we really appreciate Morven Park and all the work that’s gone into this. It really feels like a special weekend, like a proper championship, and that’s really useful for these horses to have the intensity. It’s something that they have to learn so it’s really nice to have a venue that has a bit of that so that they learn about the pressures of the sport too.”
Both White and Antenucci have high hopes for Jane in the coming years.
“She's an Advanced horse, for sure. I feel that in her,” she said. “As long as you keep developing them correctly and give them the time. The hardest thing with these horses is— as a 6-year-old to do a two star, it's a lot. At 6, you’re looking for longevity. You don’t need to rush them, because that never works.”
Second place honors went to Caroline Moran’s Holsteiner gelding Darwinn (Denver x Emma V), ridden by Phillip Dutton. The pair added 6.4 time faults to their score to finish the weekend with a 41.4.
Dutton’s had the gelding since he was 4 after Moran bought him from Dirk Schrade in Germany. He’s “loosely related” to Dutton’s four-star horse Denim, and while he wasn’t looking for a horse that young at the time, Dutton was quite impressed with this athletic ability and presence.
While Dutton is in the twilight of his competition career, he still gets joy out of producing young horses, so he’s done most of the work with Darwinn.
“He is pretty sharp still, but, you know, I like producing them and trying to develop them. There's a lot of satisfaction in doing that, so I still enjoy that part of it,” he said. “He's had a good year. He's starting to learn it all. He's quite impressed by atmosphere and his surroundings. He's still got to get used to being in a competition situation better. But this was a good weekend for him. There's a lot going on here, and just everything from the roping on the cross-country to the atmosphere and the arenas and etc. It was a big step up for him to do this.”
Darwin has also done the CCI2*-S at Plantation Field (Unionville, Pennsylvania) and will be aiming for the CCI2*-L at Virginia later this month.
This is Dutton’s first time competing in the Developing Horse Championships, and he was happy to support it and encourage American breeders to support it too.
“We have American breeders putting horses on the ground here in this country as well, so it's good to support it. It's a good cause, and it's a good experience for the horse as well. I think he's a much better horse for it after this weekend,” he said.
Dutton thinks Darwinn could go all the way in the sport, and will focus on steadily producing him through the levels.
“At the moment he's he's pretty full of himself, and he's not the quietest horse around, but he's getting better, and once he knows his job, he's quite good,” he said. “It's been a big year for him. He's come from kind of nothing to up to the two-star level, and so I think after the two-long we'll give him a bit of a break, and hopefully he comes out as a little bit more seasoned 7-year-old next year.”
Caroline Teich piloted her own Fürsten Dansil to a third place finish. The professional from Massachusetts has had the Oldenburg gelding (Fürstenball x Precious Z) after buying him as a 2-year-old from his breeder, Meredith Webb at Pferd Wings Farm in New Hampshire.
Teich started “Dansil” herself and did the USEA Young Event Horse Program (YEH) when he was 4. She brought him out this year aiming for this championship.
“He's been really wonderful. Our partnership’s really grown, and definitely his confidence has grown a lot, and this was a really good test this weekend, because there were so many spectators and tents and environment for him to take in. It was really great,” she said.
Twitch enjoyed the cross-country track today and felt it was fair to the level. “I thought that it had some really good questions with the terrain, especially the coffin,” she said. “I thought it was really kind of a big ask, especially for a 6-year-old, but it was definitely fitting for the level. So it was really fun to have him take it confidently and kind of build off of that for him.”
Teich describes Dansil as a big pony. “He's really smart and a little naughty, but he's just the cutest thing. He's got the cutest face, so he gets away with a lot!” she said.
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