T&T's adult team, led by a record break­ing per­for­mance from Patrice Stollmey­er, re­cent­ly took sec­ond spot at the lo­cal leg of the Caribbean Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion (CEA) Mi­ni Dres­sage Chal­lenge, which was staged at the Sad­dle Val­ley Sta­bles, San­ta Cruz.

On­ly one chal­lenger re­mains in the Caribbean cir­cuit event, the Cay­man Is­lands, which will con­clude the event on Sun­day.

A su­perb run by Stollmey­er on her horse Monte Car­lo, saw the T&T adult team go in­to the sec­ond spot be­hind Bermu­da. The T&T chil­dren's team al­so cur­rent­ly sits sec­ond in their con­sis­tent­ly im­pres­sive ef­forts.

It was Stollmey­er's bril­liant per­for­mance which put the T&T team in a sat­is­fy­ing sec­ond place po­si­tion with her ter­rif­ic run which amassed a 75.172 per cent to­tal in the pre­lim­i­nary test, the high­est record­ed by a lo­cal rid­er. She eas­i­ly topped the ranks, while Bermu­da's An­gela Hal­lo­ran-Smith trailed with a 72.241 per cent score.

The rid­ers were al­lowed to use their own hors­es, and due to the dif­fi­cul­ty and ex­pens­es as­so­ci­at­ed with the trans­port of their hors­es, each na­tion would host their own leg of the com­pe­ti­tion, in­stead of hav­ing one host na­tion.

Unit­ed States Eques­tri­an Fed­er­a­tion-li­cenced of­fi­cial, Mer­ri­lyn Grif­fin is the com­pe­ti­tion's judge this year. The tests pro­vid­ed are those set by the CEA and are cho­sen from both the in­ter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body for the sport, FEI and the Unit­ed States Dres­sage Fed­er­a­tion, in the chil­dren and adult cat­e­gories.

The T&T team com­prised 12 top rid­ers, one of whom is Fran­ka Costel­loe on Viking Thun­der, who al­so cur­rent­ly sits sec­ond tied with Ja­maican Su­san Wates with 68.243 per cent, nar­row­ly be­hind the leader Michelle In­g­ham of Bermu­da who scored 68.473 per cent.

Clos­ing off the adult com­pe­ti­tion was the medi­um test lev­el, and an­oth­er T&T rid­er Nevine Boc­cara per­form­ing well on Sax­on Dan with a first placed score of 66.875 per cent ahead of Bermu­da's Ash­ley Gibbbs (63.875 per cent).

Eques­tri­an star­lets Am­ber Thomp­son, Hadley Ra­hael and Kahlan Chin formed the chil­dren's team.

In the el­e­men­tary child test, Thomp­son placed first lo­cal­ly on "High­ly Es­teemed" with a score of 67.432 per cent, a re­mark­able score and the high­est in the re­gion for many years. She al­so placed first lo­cal­ly in the pre­lim­i­nary child test, again on High­ly Es­teemed with a score of 69.483 per cent.

Each of the lead­ing eques­tri­an sta­bles in T&T were rep­re­sent­ed, with team mem­bers hail­ing from Val­mont Sta­bles, Good­win Heights Sta­bles, Sad­dle Val­ley Sta­bles and Jeri­cho Sta­bles.

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