Werner Geven, the Poplar Place Farm resident trainer, riding Esker Riada completed their first CCI**** event, coming home with a 16th place finish! (Photo at right by Shannon Brinkman)
 
Esker Riada is a 14 year-old, Irish Sport Horse, owned by Thomas and Carolyn Cadier of Athens, Georgia. A CCI**** is the highest level of Eventing competition and Rolex, held April 26-30, in Lexington, Kentucky, is the only CCI**** in the United States.
 
Fifty-eight horses passed Wednesday's Horse Inspection. Friday, after Dressage, Werner and Esker were 39th with a dressage score of 63.7. Cross-country on Saturday had 30 jumps and an optimum time of just over 11 minutes. Werner and Esker accomplished the course with energy to spare and added just 11.6 time penalties to their score, for a total of 75.3 and moving them up to 23d. On Sunday morning, there were 34 remaining for the show jumping competition. Werner and Esker were up to the task with no jumping faults or time penalites (one of only 7 double clean rounds) - moving them to an exciting 16th final placing.
 
Werner and Eskar also competed in the World Equestrian Games held in Aachen, Germany, August 23-27, 2006, helping the Netherlands team to an 8th place finish.