Phillip Dutton and Quasi Cool Win CCI4*-S at Plantation Field International – USEA
Phillip Dutton and Quasi Cool added only 3.2 time faults to their dressage score of 25.7 to claim the CCI4*-S title at the Plantation Field International Three-Day Event. Dutton and Caroline Moran’s 10-year-old Holsteiner gelding (Quo Vados I x B-Estelle) stood third after dressage, jumped clear in yesterday’s show jumping to move up to second overnight, and kept their cool around Derek di Grazia’s challenging cross-country course to move up to the top spot.
Dutton, who represented the U.S. at the Tokyo Olympics this past summer, said that Quasi Cool was imported from Germany about two years ago from Dirk Schrade. “He’s shaping up nicely and turning out to be a nice horse,” said Dutton. “This is the first time he’s been at the four-star level. Coming into it I didn’t plan to go as quick as I did cross-country, but he was in a good position after dressage and show jumping so I set out to go as quick as I could without scaring him and he handled it pretty well.”
Olympic course designer di Grazia started designing the courses at Plantation Field this year and Dutton said, “It wasn’t completely different, but I liked the changes. It’s very hilly terrain here and it can be hard on the horses if you have too much downhill, and I think Derek did a good job of making us go across the hills instead of up and down the hills. I thought that was very fair for the horses.” With Quasi Cool now qualified for the four-star long, Dutton said his next event will be at either Morven Park or Tryon.
