Ashley Holzer Wins Champion and Reserve Titles in Buffalo Wild Wings Prix St. Georges Future Challenge
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.
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