It was a close competition during the FEI Junior Team test at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival last weekend, but Jacquelynn Mackie and her horse Weltrubin 5 came out on top. Two days later, they also took first place in the FEI Junior Individual test. Adding to the pair’s success, Everglades Dressage, a long-standing dressage facility in Wellington, Florida, singled them out to become the recipients of the last Everglades Dressage Rider Achievement Award of the 2016 season.
The Everglades Dressage Rider Achievement Award is presented to riders who show admirable achievements in dressage throughout the 12-week Adequan Global Dressage Festival. Mackie and Weltrubin 5 showed both composure and energy in the ring, resulting in a winning ride and an exhibition of talent and a promising future. The young Michigan-based rider has owned Weltrubin for just under a year, and is working hard to excel in the show ring with him. “I’m training with George Williams, and I just finished the WITP program (Winter Intensive Training Program) with Lendon Gray,” she explained. “That was awesome!”
Finishing the winter show season with two blue ribbons indicates that Mackie’s hard work is paying off. “I was proud of him,” said Mackie of Weltrubin 5’s performance. Mackie acknowledged that keeping the Hanoverian gelding’s nerves in check on the windy day, which provided plenty of distractions for the horse, had been a bit challenging. “He’s very sensitive and I knew he could hear plates dropping and the flag pole clanging, but he tried his best and I was very proud of him.”
Mackie said Weltrubin 5’s unassuming nature is what she finds most endearing about the horse. “You see him just hanging out and he doesn’t look like he has international quality gaits at all,” Mackie says, “But once you get him jazzed up, as some of my trainers like to say, he really throws it all out there. It’s really nice.” Mackie and Weltrubin 5 are next working towards the Adequan/FEI North American Junior and Young Rider Championships (NAJYRC) this summer. “I would really like to take him to the North Americans and the Juniors. We’ll see, but that would be really fun to do,” said Mackie.
Rose and Bethany Peslar, the mother/daughter duo behind Everglades Dressage, are proud to have been a part of making possible another successful dressage season in Wellington, Florida. The Peslars have been strongly supporting dressage in the area for not only this season, but since before the Adequan Global Dressage Festival was even founded. As soon as plans for the international winter show series were announced several years ago, the Peslars jumped in as founding sponsors, and have been showing their support for the series ever since.
In addition to sponsoring, the Peslars were happy to present the Everglades Dressage Rider Achievement Award to admirable riders throughout the show season. All award-winning riders received an embroidered saddle pad as a lasting reminder that their efforts in dressage are noticed and appreciated. Everglades Dressage encourages these riders— and all who love the sport—to continue riding towards fulfilling their goals in dressage.