Among the bays and greys, there’s a flash of colour in the five-star at Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event this week, as the skewbald Fluorescent Adolescent steps forward.
“She is as colourful in personality as she is in looks,” said the mare’s rider, Canada’s Jessica Phoenix, after her dressage test yesterday. “She has a larger than life personality and she loves people, loves treats, loves cameras.”
Jessica adds: “She is a crowd favourite almost everywhere we go and she has a lot of fans asking for photos with her, which she loves. She’s just one of those horses that fills space with her personality.”
“Lacey” was competed up to three-star level by Jessica’s student Makayla Rydzik, who passed on the ride when she didn’t have time to compete her any more. She still owns the now 17-year-old.
Fluorescent Adolescent was actually bred by Jessica’s first eventing coach Kelly Plitz and her husband Ian Roberts, Canadian Olympians who are based at Dreamcrest Farm in Ontario. She was named, and trained and competed from a four-year-old up to the current two-star level, by another Canadian rider, Hannah Rankin.
Her sire is the coloured stallion Gaudy, a son of Fidermark NRW (by Florestan I), and she is out of a mare called Amelia (by Ali Baba), who Kelly and Ian both competed up to current three-star level.
At Kentucky Three-Day Event yesterday, Fluorescent Adolescent – also the name of a song by the Arctic Monkeys – scored 36.8 in her dressage test for 11th overnight.
“Lacey was a real professional in there,” said Jessica. “She definitely is a horse that can feel atmosphere and I was just so pleased that she went in there, felt a little bit of it, calmed down, got to work, felt a little bit of it, calmed down, went back to work.
“She’s just getting so much stronger in that phase and I’m really proud of what she did in there today.
“She is just a phenomenal horse. She is all heart. When she comes to a competition, she’s there to win. She normally does not win on the first day, but she just claws her way up the leaderboard all weekend long. She is a horse that loves being in the atmosphere at the big shows and she really thrives under that type of pressure.”
The pair have completed the CCI4*-S at Kentucky twice, with jumping clears across country both times. Although she did the dressage at Maryland 5 Star last year, Lacey was then withdrawn so this will be her five-star cross-country debut.
Looking forward to Saturday, Jessica said: “She doesn’t have the hugest step cross-country – there’s definitely a couple of options on the course where you can do different striding to still make the quick routes work, so I think we’ll be looking into that with Lacey.
“She is a horse that leaves the start box going to make time so you just want to really protect that heart in her and give her the best ride with the best lines possible so that she stays really confident.”
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