Week two of the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) came to a peak on the Equestrian Village derby field on Sunday with the $140,000 CSI3* Grand Prix. Germany’s Richard Vogel returned to familiar territory after a banner year at Wellington International in 2023, and stormed to victory once again aboard Cydello.
Vogel and the ten-year-old gelding left it all on the field, crossing the finish line at 36.32 seconds, taking over three seconds off the original time to beat, 39.17 seconds.
Cydello is a new addition to Vogel’s string and the Coleridge Equestrian team, “I had my eye on him [Cydello] for a few years before we got him,” said Vogel. “He was born half an hour from our base in Germany. I know his breeders pretty well, but he was never really for sale. Eventually, I was able to sit on him and it worked pretty well between the two of us.”