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<div style="font-size: 9px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.14em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #6b7280; margin-bottom: 5px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Series Standing</div>
<div style="font-size: 26px; font-weight: 800; color: #83b1d6; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">30th</div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.35; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">US Equestrian Open of Dressage</div>
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<div style="font-size: 9px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.14em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #6b7280; margin-bottom: 5px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Series Points</div>
<div style="font-size: 26px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">18</div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.35; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Two of four scores counted</div>
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<div style="font-size: 9px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.14em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #6b7280; margin-bottom: 5px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Qualifiers Completed</div>
<div style="font-size: 26px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2 / 4</div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.35; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Devon and TerraNova remain</div>
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<div style="font-size: 9px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.14em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #6b7280; margin-bottom: 5px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Freestyle PB</div>
<div style="font-size: 26px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">73.015%</div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.35; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2025 MADFest Lexington, VA&nbsp;</div>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Laine Ashker</strong> is chasing the US Equestrian Open in two disciplines at once, and she is the only rider doing it. In eventing she just claimed her first four-star win, at Maryland International, aboard <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Lovedance</strong>, but she has ridden at the CCI five-star level too. In dressage, she competed at her first CDI5* at last year's Finals. She's trying to make it two for two with <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Zeppelin</strong>, a Grand Prix horse she produced herself. Ask her if she's a dressage rider or an eventer and she says both.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How she was seen used to bother her. The eventer who also does dressage. "If I'm gonna do dressage, I want to be a dressage rider doing dressage," she says. "And I want to be an eventing rider doing eventing." She has earned the right to draw that line. She has brought her own horses up to Grand Prix, and she has stood in a CDI arena across from <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Isabell Werth</strong>.</p>
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<p style="font-size: 22px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.35; color: #001c54; margin: 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Once you ride against Isabell Werth, then you can say that you're a dressage rider," she says. "I got my butt kicked, but I still rode against her."</p>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Her entry into the dressage ring was an accident. Eighteen years ago a student posted an ad on Craigslist offering Laine's lessons. One person answered: an owner named <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Ann Wilson</strong>, who had just bought a horse and wanted him produced in dressage. Laine thought the sport was rather boring and preferred to run and jump. But she took the horse from first level up the ranks anyway, lost badly the first time she tried the FEI levels, got rung out at her first CDI in Wellington when he put his tongue over the bit, but decided to keep going. She credits Wilson with her entire dressage career.</p>
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<p style="font-size: 22px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.35; color: #001c54; margin: 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"I have to give my whole career, across the board, to Ann Wilson."</p>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The two sports feed each other, and that is the part she finds most useful. Dressage gave her a more balanced canter, the kind she needs riding around the show jumping ring on day three or into a cross-country coffin at speed. Eventing gave her something a lot of dressage riders lack. "When someone tells me to ride forward, I can understand that," she says. One of her eventing coaches, <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Philip Dutton</strong>, has actually helped her quite a bit on the flat. "Good training is good training across the board," she says. The result, in her eyes, is a better horsewoman in both rings.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Laine grew up in a recording studio, her mother a singer, her father writing the music, and classic rock is in her blood. As luck would have it, her Grand Prix horse came already carrying the name Zeppelin. So naturally, they ride to Led Zeppelin. <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Terry Gallo</strong> built the freestyle and <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Allie Brock</strong> coaches the work, and together they have set the degree of difficulty around what Zeppelin does best, the pirouettes and the piaffe, with swingier music written to lift a trot she calls average. This year she has raised the difficulty again. She strings together movements many riders keep separate, a pirouette into extended walk into a piaffe pirouette into a collected walk. Her personal best in the Grand Prix Freestyle is 73.015%, and the new floor plan is built to push it higher.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Zeppelin's got a cool head. He does not melt down under lights or noise, making him built for a freestyle atmosphere. That lets Laine do the thing the whole Open is built around, which is play to the crowd instead of managing the horse. "With Zeppy, I'm like, come on, clap with me," she says. It is also, she thinks, the way in for new fans. "If you don't know about dressage, it can be boring," she says.&nbsp;</p>
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<p style="font-size: 22px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.35; color: #001c54; margin: 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"But the freestyles, you're allowed to bring your personality out, and it shows."</p>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Her window to the dressage final is narrow. Laine sits 30th in the standings with 18 points from two of her four counting scores. The top eighteen make the Final at Desert International Horse Park in November, nineteen if the cutline ends in a tie. Two qualifiers remain, Dressage at Devon in late September and TerraNova in October. As an East Coast-based rider, she has fairly easy access to both. With two clean results this fall, she stands a good chance at making the field.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">She covers the rest in the episode, the Maryland win, the Craigslist beginning, the affirmations that steadied her season, and a lot more on Zeppelin. Listen to <a style="color: #c8102e; font-weight: 600; text-decoration: none;" href="https://sites.libsyn.com/559710/lovedance-dual-threat-making-it-a-double-a-conversation-with-laine-ashker"><em>Lovedance, Dual Threat &amp; Making It a Double: A Conversation with Laine Ashker</em></a> on the US Equestrian Open Podcast.</p>

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<div style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: 800; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.3; margin-bottom: 14px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Lovedance, Dual Threat &amp; Making It a Double: A Conversation with Laine Ashker</div>
<a style="display: inline-block; background: #c8102e; color: #ffffff; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; text-transform: uppercase; padding: 8px 18px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 2px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" href="https://sites.libsyn.com/559710/lovedance-dual-threat-making-it-a-double-a-conversation-with-laine-ashker" target="_blank" rel="noopener" aria-label="Listen to Lovedance, Dual Threat and Making It a Double on the US Equestrian Open Podcast">Listen Now &rarr;</a></td>
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Podcast Feature: Laine Ashker on Zeppelin, the Freestyle, and Chasing the Open in Two Disciplines

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<p dir="ltr">The US has settled on four combinations for the <a href="https://www.usef.org/compete/breeds/dressage/2026-fei-dressage-world-championships" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FEI World Championships</a> in Aachen. The team medals are decided first, over two days of Grand Prix on August 11 and 12. The individual medals come later, in the Grand Prix Special on the 14th and the Freestyle on the 15th. Three of the four riders currently sit inside the top ten of the US Equestrian Open of Dressage <a href="https://equestrian-hub.com/public/championship/dressage/708" target="_blank" rel="noopener">standings</a>. Here's who they are and what each brings to the ring at Aachen.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Ashley Holzer and Hawtins San Floriana</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Holzer is the most decorated rider on the team, a four-time Olympian who won team bronze for Canada at Seoul in 1988 before she declared for the US. She has spent this summer competing in Europe ahead of Aachen, with a runner-up finish at the Hartpury Festival of Dressage along the way. "Flo" came to her from <strong>Carl Hester</strong> and <strong>Charlotte Dujardin</strong>, and when Holzer is at Hester's yard in England she hacks the mare out through the picturesque countryside. The partnership took time to build. Holzer has said that getting a mare to cooperate means asking, then asking again with a please, and then, when that fails, sending flowers. She has been the freestyle machine of the group this season, with five performances and an average just shy of 75%. She also holds the best Grand Prix Special score of the four team riders, a personal-best of 72.574% for second at Hartpury. <a href="https://www.usequestrianopen.org/stories/ashley-holzer-on-flo-neil-diamond-and-what-the-series-is-for" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Her freestyle</a> this year is set to Neil Diamond's "Coming to America," a nod to her own move to the States. She currently leads the US Equestrian Open of Dressage standings.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Jordan LaPlaca and Gold Play</h2>
<p dir="ltr">LaPlaca is based out of Maverick Hill Dressage in Ledyard, Connecticut, and works with mentor <strong>Albrecht Heidemann</strong> and <strong>Christine Traurig</strong>, who happens to be the Chef d'Equipe steering this Aachen team. He produced Gold Play himself, buying the gelding as a four-year-old from German team rider <strong>Frederic Wandres</strong> and bringing him all the way up to the top. The Grand Prix Special is this pair&rsquo;s strongest test. LaPlaca won it at the Wellington Nations Cup on his senior team debut. Gold Play enjoyed the one-tempi changes so much that day that he added two extra down the centerline, and they won anyway. They have since pushed <a href="https://www.usequestrianopen.org/stories/the-open-weekly-team-announcements-and-us-combinations-around-the-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener">their personal best</a> to 71.745% at Hagen. LaPlaca has ridden almost everything, from hunters and jumpers to saddleseat, eventing, and driving, and he still competes as an FEI-registered driver. This is a breakout season for LaPlaca in the senior at Grand Prix.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Christian Simonson and Fleau de Baian</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Simonson is the youngest rider on the squad and in his first season in the senior division. He grew up in Ventura, California, is now based in Wellington, and trains under Olympian <strong>Adrienne Lyle</strong>. "Felix" was developed to the top level by Dutch star <strong>Adelinde Cornelissen</strong> before Simonson took over the ride, and the horse is owned by Zen Elite Equestrian Center. Together they posted the best freestyle score on the team this year. That was a 76.570% at the Hagen Nations Cup on the Fourth of July, a mark Simonson loved for the date as much as the number, and it came in only their second freestyle together. Away from the ring Simonson is the adventurous sort, with a student pilot's license earned at 15 and a childhood spent mountain biking, skiing, and scuba diving before dressage won out. He currently sits tenth in the US Equestrian Open of Dressage standings, and holds one of the highest freestyle scores in the Series on his other mount, <a href="https://www.usequestrianopen.org/stories/we-warned-you-about-indian-rock" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indian Rock</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Ge&ntilde;ay Vaughn and Gino</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Vaughn runs Starr Vaughn Equestrian in Elk Grove, California, alongside her mother Michele, who is both her coach and Gino's owner. She also trains with Kathleen Raine in California and Patrick Kittel in Germany. <a href="https://www.usequestrianopen.org/stories/new-podcast-genay-vaughn-lives-in-ginos-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener">She comes from sporting stock</a>: her father is former Major League Baseball slugger Greg Vaughn, and Ge&ntilde;ay was born the year he made an All-Star team, which is how she and the family farm both ended up named Starr. Michele bought Gino as a green six-year-old back in 2017, rode him herself, then handed the reins to her daughter once she saw what he could become. Vaughn calls him her best friend first and her teammate second. Gino is the Grand Prix engine of the team, and his 72.282% at Del Mar this year is the best of the four. She currently sits fifth in the standings and became the first rider to win two consecutive Open qualifiers this season.&nbsp;</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">The reserves</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Two combinations stand ready behind the team. Kasey Perry-Glass and Heartbeat W.P. are first reserve, with Meagan Davis and Toronto Lightfoot second. All six will have one eye on the fall, when the Series picks back up and builds toward the Final at Thermal in November. First, though, comes Aachen.&nbsp;</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a style="display: block;" href="https://www.usequestrianopen.org/categories/dressage" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img style="display: block; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" src="https://usef-admin.fly.dev/assets/df3afaab-1f25-4fab-a1dc-c46c608169fb" alt="Read more dressage" width="100%"></a></p>
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