Lovelee is a 17 year old, 15.1 hand bay Arabian mare. She is by Litigator out of Khemo Fli. She is owned and ridden by 16 year-old Suzanne. Suzanne rides her dressage and is planning on competing her in First Level and Second Level in the 2004 show season.
Lovelee is now in North Carolina, where her owners moved this past summer. She loves being on a large farm next to her owner's house, something she and Suzanne never had in California.
Lovelee and Suzanne had their first show in North Carolina on August 30 to September 1. The weekend was a mess because of all the rain that flooded the arenas and warmups, yet the team pulled through and they received Second Place at First Level Test 4 and Third Place at Second Level Test 1.
At the breed show on September 2, Lovelee and Suzanne had a new experience. Suzanne showed Lovelee in hand and won Second Place in her class with a score of 69.2, which made them both happy.
The next Saturday, September 7, the team did First Level Test 4 and Second Level Test 1 at a local schooling show. Although they were the only ones in each of the two classes, they performed extremely well receiving a 70.29% at First Level Test 2 (their second highest dressage score ever and their highest at First Level) and a 64.74% at Second Level Test 1.
Warriorprinz was born the morning of April 25, 2003. He is a dark bay Half Arabian colt. He is registered Oldenburg and scored a 7.9 at the inspection (an 8.0 is premium)! It was the day of the hurricane in NC and he could not have been more up! Lovelee is now in the Oldenburg Main Mare book, having scored 98 points, the highest of the three mares at the inspection!
On Saturday March 23, 2002 Lovelee and Suzanne attended their first 2002 dressage show. It was at Denville-Kanani Farms in Pleasanton, CA, and the team performed Training Level Tests 3 and 4. They won both classes with a score of 68.846% on Training Level Test 3 and a 69.600% at Training Level Test 4!!! There were six or seven horse-rider teams that performed Training Level Test 3, and four horse-rider teams for Training Level Test 4. (At Test 4 Suzanne and Lovelee beat two Hanoverians and a Dutch Warmblood.)
Suzanne and Lovelee had to overcome tremendous obstacles to even attend this show. To begin with, Suzanne had just over two weeks to prepare Lovelee, who had not done serious dressage work for over two months. And to add to the difficulty, a 17.3 hand Dutch Warmblood spooked while Suzanne was grooming him and repeatedly hit and stepped on Suzanne�s lower leg and foot just a week and a half before the show, on the day Suzanne was supposed to have a lesson with her trainer. Suzanne was on crutches and could not walk for over half a week. Nonetheless, she still rode bareback, without stirrups, and with only one stirrup for the time during which she could not even put any weight on it. And on the Tuesday before the show, Suzanne had her first lesson with her trainer, followed by another lesson two days later, on the Thursday before the show. The lessons were so close to the show that Suzanne and Lovelee did not have much time to work on the things that needed improvement. However, they did what they set out to do: prove that Arabians cannot only benefit from dressage, they can competitively perform it even in all breed shows. They overcame the incredible obstacles put before them, and performed with incredible, as Suzanne�s mother puts it, �spark�.
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