Excerpted from "Morse Has a Tip Top Time at Great American/USDF Region 7 and CDS Championships"
Reprinted from the October 31, 2003 Issue of the Chronicle of the Horse
by Sheri Scott
 Jennifer Hoffmann and Petit Danseur trotted off with the GAIG/USDF Region 7 Championship at Intermediaire 1. |
“He’s very powerful and very sensitive,” said Hoffmann of the 8 year-old gelding. “He can go off in a second and be a bullet. You always have to be on top of things with him.”
On Thursday he was bouncing up and down and bucking around in the warm-up ring. But by Friday he had settled. “We had an absolutely perfect test, no mistakes, very big and bold and expressive,” said Hoffmann of the CDS class.
Hoffmann could feel that Petit Danseur was a little tired by Sunday’s USDF Championship Class.
He went in and was flawless,” said Hoffmann. “It was the first time I felt him tired, but yet he still fought every step and pushed himself to the limit. I was still able to ride his trot extensions as bold as I did on Friday. I could feel him at the end of the test when I let the reins go, ‘Oh, thank God it’s over.’ He has a heart of gold.”
Hoffmann and her husband Jürgen found Petit Danseur on a buying trip to Europe in February. The bay has no papers or brand, but was raised in the Netherlands and had a short show career in Germany at the lower levels.
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