Justynne Fletch­er de­liv­ered a stel­lar dis­play of pre­ci­sion to lead T&T’s charge at the Caribbean Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion (CEA) Re­gion­al Dres­sage Chal­lenge held on Feb­ru­ary 28 and March 1 in San­ta Cruz.

Rid­ing Cape Canaver­al at First Lev­el, Fletch­er se­cured a com­mand­ing score of 69.17% (Team Score 70.17%), mark­ing one of the high­est in­di­vid­ual per­for­mances of the two-day event.​The com­pe­ti­tion, staged at San An­to­nio Sta­bles and Sandy Hill Sta­bles, saw lo­cal rid­ers pit their skills against the best in the re­gion through a unique "vir­tu­al" for­mat.

While T&T ath­letes per­formed lo­cal­ly un­der the watch­ful eye of FEI 4-Star Judge Alexan­dre Lac­er­da Leão, their scores will now be com­pared against rid­ers from across the Caribbean against coun­ter­parts in sev­en oth­er mem­ber coun­tries, in­clud­ing Bar­ba­dos, Bermu­da, Cay­man Is­lands, Ja­maica, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, and Haiti, to de­ter­mine the over­all Caribbean re­sults.

Fletch­er’s per­for­mance was the an­chor for a dom­i­nant Adult Team in the Re­gion­al Dres­sage Chal­lenge (RDC), which post­ed a cu­mu­la­tive to­tal of 202.17%.

The week­end show­cased a great deal of tal­ent across all di­vi­sions. In the RDC, Amy Costel­loe turned in a su­perb per­for­mance on Holy Man, earn­ing 67.20% in the Train­ing Lev­el.

In the Chil­dren’s Di­vi­sion, Jaimie Fletch­er rid­ing Take Over dis­played great tech­ni­cal skill at Third Lev­el to post 63.75% (Team Score 66.85%), while Suri Mari­am con­tributed a sol­id 60.60% to the youth ef­fort.

​The Mi­ni Dres­sage Chal­lenge (MDC) al­so saw im­pres­sive re­sults as Zahra-Lys King led the field in the Adult Di­vi­sion with a pol­ished 64.62% (Team Score 67.62%). On the ju­nior side, Shane Mof­fat im­pressed with a 62.75%, and Kaitlin Lee round­ed out the high­lights with 61.56%.

​The event fea­tured fierce com­pe­ti­tion across the team brack­ets, high­light­ing the col­lab­o­ra­tive strength of the lo­cal sta­bles. The RDC Adult Team claimed a to­tal of 202.17%, bol­stered by Fletch­er’s high mark, Costel­loe’s con­sis­ten­cy, and a 64.80% from Cait­lyn Se­bastien on Roy­al Bal­let. In the RDC Chil­dren’s Team cat­e­go­ry, the trio of Jaimie Fletch­er, Suri Mari­am, and Mia Carter (scor­ing 60.00% on In­tegri­ty) com­bined for a fi­nal score of 187.45%.

​Suc­cess con­tin­ued in the Mi­ni Dres­sage Chal­lenge, where the MDC Chil­dren’s Team tal­lied 196.39%. This ef­fort was led by Lil­lie-Belle Balkissoon, who earned a team-high 69.54% on Kryp­tonite, sup­port­ed by Mia Vieira, rid­ing Wild Fire, who scored 62.115% (Team Score 65.12%), and Shane Mof­fat, rid­ing Roy­al Bal­let in In­tro­duc­to­ry Lev­el Test C, scored 62.75% (Team Score 64.75%).

Mean­while, in the MDC Adult Team com­pe­ti­tion, rid­ers achieved a com­bined team to­tal of 198.42%. Zahra-Lys King rid­ing L’Ou­vre scored 64.615% (Team Score 67.62%), So­phie Tewari rid­ing Qui­et Bid scored 63.654% (Team Score 66.65%), and Olivia Vieria rid­ing Kryp­tonite scored 61.154% (Team Score 64.15%).

​The TTEA, via a re­lease, com­mend­ed all rid­ers for their com­mit­ment and ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the coach­es and vol­un­teers who en­sured the week­end's suc­cess.

It stat­ed, "As dres­sage con­tin­ues to grow in T&T, these re­gion­al chal­lenges serve as vi­tal step­ping stones for ath­letes aim­ing for high­er in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards."

​The fo­cus now shifts from the grace of the dres­sage are­na to the pow­er of the jump­ing course. The TTEA will host the Re­gion­al Jump­ing Chal­lenge on March 28 at Sandy Hill Sta­bles, where eques­tri­ans will com­pete in the Re­gion­al Jump­ing Chal­lenge, tack­ling heights rang­ing from 0.75 me­tres to 1.05m.