By Alice Collins for Wellington International 

After three jam-packed months of exciting competition that included seven CDI shows, on Sunday, March 30, the curtain came down on the final day of the 2025 Adequan® Global Dressage Festival (AGDF) season in Wellington, FL. This year, the one-of-a-kind dressage circuit boasted 1996 entries in the national rings and 450 CDI entries, with 17 different nations represented.

Ten promising small tour horses all aged eight or nine went down centerline in the developing horse Prix St. Georges Future Challenge final, sponsored by Diane Fellows’s family company, Buffalo Wild Wings. The first to do so was Liberty L, a nine-year-old KWPN gelding by Toto Jr x Charmeur owned by his rider, Ashley Holzer. The pair put down 72.843% on the leaderboard, and nobody could catch them. 

Holzer got closest on her second ride, PJ Rizvi’s nine-year-old Derek. The Morricone x Sandro Hit gelding was the last to go and notched up 70.98% for the reserve champion’s sash. Callie O’Connell finished third on Ruling Cortes LLC’s nine-year-old Franky Di Fonteabeti. The Italian-bred Franklin x Wynton gelding scored 70.392% in heavy rain, testament to the horse’s focus on his rider in the ring.  

The class is open to developing small tour horses aged seven to nine. As with all the developing horse series at AGDF—of which there are now three—they are designed to offer horses with international quality the opportunity to perform a test in CDI conditions but without some of the pressures of an international show. Riders can showcase their developing horses in the stadium arena for assessment by international judges. Unlike in a CDI, riders may carry a whip, and horses do not need to stable at the venue overnight. 

Weather during the class presented challenges, with some contending with rain showers, though thankfully a major thunderstorm held off until just after the prize-giving ceremony. 

Holzer has owned the champion, Liberty L, since he was four, although she has not been focused on him until recently. He was fifth in this final in 2024.

“He’s been ridden by everyone, including a tiny 12-year-old girl in the Robert Dover Horsemastership class,” said Holzer, who has been second on numerous occasions in this final, but had never won it. “Liberty was on the back burner, but I took over training him about a year ago and have been building him up. I showed him in Europe last summer and he won two small tour classes at the Wellington CDI in England. 

“I had him in this class because I wanted to get him in the main ring and see if I put a little pressure on the small tour whether he could handle it, which he did beautifully,” continued Holzer. “Katherine [Bateson Chandler] told me not to rush him in the canter and just let him settle and show his beautiful gait, and that was the big turnaround for him today. I felt that special cadence and moment of suspension with power. He has huge talent for piaffe and passage, so I think he’s going to be an incredible Grand Prix horse.” 

The reserve champion horse, Derek, was bought sight unseen from an auction as a four-year-old. 

“PJ has very kindly allowed me to bring him into this Buffalo Wild Wings series because we feel really strongly about this class,” continued Holzer. “It’s a super situation where we can get young horses into this atmosphere. The trot was a bit too passage-y with Derek because we were training the piaffe/passage yesterday, so I should have ridden it more forward, but it was great to get these horses in there. It was an incredible day for us. 

“I was also watching the other competitors in the warm-up and they were all on such great quality horses. It’s great that we have so many talented horses in this area of the world right now. I’m grateful to my life-long friend Diane Fellows for supporting this series,” she concluded.  

Inaugural Young Horse Challenge

Alice Tarjan was the champion of the inaugural Palm Beach Equine Young Horse Future Challenge riding her own Orado in the FEI 6-Year-Old Final Test. She led an all-female American sweep, all mounted on Dutch Warmbloods. Orado is a six-year-old stallion by Desperado—a sire who was well represented during AGDF 12, as Tarjan’s mare Jane, who was ridden to a double at Grand Prix by Marcus Orlob, is also by the Vivaldi son. Tarjan was the last athlete to qualify for the final, having earned her spot during AGDF10. 

Hope Cooper rode Tammy Richard’s stallion O Romeo S (by Charmeur x UB 40) into the reserve champion spot with 82.2%. The highest score in the class, 85.4%, was awarded to Mary Bahniuk Lauritsen on Deborah Alfond’s Just Wimphof gelding Oliver R Tambo SV, though they had not qualified as Challenge finalists.  

AGDF Director of Sport Thomas Baur was delighted to welcome the new young horse developing classes to the show’s roster. He said: “We’ve now added the missing link of the young horses to our Future Challenge series, so now we go from five-year-olds to Grand Prix. 

“Our Future Challenges were very successful this year, and we had 72 entries across the five qualifiers in the Buffalo Wild Wings Challenge, which is great. We’ll continue to build these opportunities in the future because this is where we can help the riders move their horses up towards grand prix,” he added.

Sunday’s action marks the conclusion of the three-month 2025 AGDF season. Next year’s 12-week circuit opens with a World Cup CDI in AGDF1, which runs January 7-11. The CDI5* is set to take place earlier, during week three (January 21-25). Full provisional AGDF 2026 dates can be found here. For more information, show reports, and results visit the Global Dressage Festival website.