Articles: Horse News
Ravel Makes His Final Competitive Appearance as Equestrian Competition at
the 2012 Olympic Games Wraps Up
Steffen Peters & Ravel (Shannon Brinkman)
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NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 9, 2012
By Joanie Morris
Greenwich, UK - The equestrian competition at the 2012 Olympic Games ended
today and the U.S. medal drought continued. Steffen Peters and Ravel carried
the weight of a nation into main arena for the Freestyle, which would
determine the Individual medals, and the most consistently clutch
combination in U.S. Dressage history didn't have the day they were hoping
for.
Great Britain did.
Charlotte Dujardin scored a historic 90.089% on Valegro to win Individual
Gold on the heels of the Team Gold she scored earlier in the week. That Gold
was the first dressage medal ever won by Great Britain, Dujardin and
teammate Laura Bechtolsheimer (on Mistral Hojris), who won Bronze, tripled
that count in one afternoon. Adelinde Cornelissen and Parzival scored Silver
for The Netherlands.
Ravel, who has been so reliable through the last four years, was visibly
distracted during his test. Mistakes meant the mark suffered at
77.268%. This horse's resume is clearly so much stronger. The 14-year-old
KWPN gelding owned by Four Winds Farm was fourth individually at the 2008
Olympic Games, he won the 2009 Rolex FEI World Cup Final, the 2009 Aachen
CDIO, won two Bronze medals at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games
and has twice been the USEF National Grand Prix Dressage Champion. He's a
modern day legend for the American sport. But today was not his day.
"I had a super warm-up but he was definitely a bit distracted," said
Peters. "He kept looking around in the trot extensions and the canter
extensions. If you remember Ravel for his career and you put it all together
- this is just a little glitch today."
"He's an extremely generous horse and one of the best horses anyone could
ever ride. This is it for him. Unfortunately this is it for him and that is
why it is so sad that it didn;t work out today. It just wasn't a good
freestyle and it wasn't the way I wanted to finish this."
For Peters (San Diego, CA), the disappointment was made greater by the fact
that he and Ravel's owners Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang have made the
difficult decision to retire their wonderful horse.
"It is very sad that it happened at the end of his career but I still love
him," said Peters. "He has given us so much just not quite today... he was
just distracted in there."
There were some wonderful moments in Ravel's work as always, and the level
of difficulty, including the two-time changes on a circle, which Peters said
they added today. He finished his test with riding passage with one hand.
"He owes us nothing," said Peters of Ravel. "We owe him everything."
ENDS
Results are available at http://www.london2012.com/equestrian/
For more information about the U.S. Olympic Equestrian Team visit
http://usefnetwork.com/featured/Olympics2012/
The vision of the United States Equestrian Federation is to provide
leadership
for equestrian sport in the United States of America by promoting the
pursuit
of excellence from the grassroots to the Olympic Games, based on a
foundation of fair, safe competition and the welfare
of its human and equine athletes
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