Sterling and Ulano have had a busy summer. The pair left the country on July 15th, flying into Amsterdam and traveling to their first competition: Beekbergen July 19th – 22nd. Sterling put in a solid performance in dressage, finished the marathon safely, and was ranked 8th in cones, driving a clear round with just some time penalties. That put him in 16th out of 40 drivers for the weekend. He was generally happy with how the show went, and it gave him good information about what he needed to do to improve for the next two competitions.
The second competition was in Beesd, Holland August 2nd – 5th. He started the competition with a strong dressage test ending up 2nd of 22 with a score of 41.39! After completing cones the same day, Sterling sat in 6th going into marathon. Saturday proved to be a good day for Sterling, finishing 4th in marathon (the top American for the day). Michiel Kwinten navigated for him at this show, and Sterling felt much more confident than at Beekbergen with his new Glinkowski Falcon marathon vehicle. Final results for the US competitors were: Sterling 3rd, Donna Crookston 13th, and Sarah Schmidt 16th.
Ulano and Sterling are now at team coach Michael Freund’s farm in Germany for final training prior to Portugal. Sterling reported that training has been going well, even with Coach Freund’s tough cones courses set with only 15 cm clearance! On August 20th, the USEF officially announced that Sterling and Ulano, along with three other US drivers, have been entered for the World Championships.
Thank you all for your support. Only three more weeks until the World Championships!
Team Sterling LLC 