Photo Competition 5 funny photo

Ad your favourite funny photo here. Here is mine, Susan apparently de-bugging Julian's hair ( I won't tell you what she was really looking for) while we waited for the bus at the 3DE. Jen

Photo Competition 4 Pony Champs

Ad your best pics form the pony champs.
Jen

Comp 3 best pic form our week in Munster

Ad any pics you think are worthwhile from our week in Munster, they could be from any of our visits or from around Munster. Don't forget to ad some text so we know who's pics we are looking at
Jen

Photo comp 2 best pic from the European Junior and YR champs

Ad your pics and some text here if you have an entry in this competition.
There could be a prize so have a go.
jen

Competition time - comp for the best pic from Heidleberg

OK, now we can start our compeitions.
Pleas ad your best photo of Heidleberg ( notfrom the compeition but from the schloss or around town. Don't forget to ad some test here so we know who's pic is whose.
Jen

What a time!

Well by now I have recovered from my jet lag and am back at school, but still I am dreaming of Germany. Thankyou to all our sponsors and Jenny for giving our group the oppurtunity to do all the wonderful things we did. It was a great learning experience for us and I know i'll never forget it... I'm already putting some of the exercises we learnt into practice in my training.

The standards of both horse and rider combinations in Germany were so great and I now no what level of quality I should be striving for both at home and at competition. I cannot write all my notes and thoughts of the trip on one blogspot, and all of them I consider to be of value.

Thankyou again to all the people involved in the planning of this trip, it was GREAT!

Let's start at the very beginning...

...A very good place to start!

Now that I have (nearly) recovered from jet lag by sleeping 18 hours a day, I have sorted through the hundreds of photos I took to go with my recollections of an awe-inspiring tour of Deutschland, for which I gratefully thank Jenny Carroll for all the time spent coordinating the numerous attendances at the championships and studs that resulted in a once in a lifetime experience. Also a thank you to everyone who helped us by providing contacts who were willing to give their time freely so that we could learn what has enabled the Germans the world recognised leaders of dressage.

Anyway, we started the tour at Heidelberg, a beautiful town in the province of Baden-Württemberg. Attached is a photo showing the view from the top of one of the mountains. On the day of arrival, we took a "leisurely stroll" up to the ruins of the Schloss (castle) - photo attached - before having dinner on the Fussgängerzone (pedestrian zone) near the cathedral not far from the kornmarkt ('corn market') - photo attachted.

Next day, after some skillful bus driving through tiny streets, we arrived at the Brookhouse Stud, home of Emma Hindle, a British Olympic rider. Emma kindly demostrated riding one of her FEI stallions - photo attached. Afterwards her stud manager willingly spoke to us about the steps undertaken to select and purchase horses suitable for Emma to ride and for breeding. Emma has a strong and focused personality and clearly knows what she wants in an Olympic horse. She willingly and openly shared her views and opinions on training and preparing horses and what criteria she thought was important in determining if the horse will make it to Grand Prix. Suprisingly she was perhaps more forthright than the German trainers who we met later. Lastly, some of her mannerisms and looks (including long ponytail) reminded a few of us of our own Rachael Sanna!

As I sort through my photos, I will post more on our trip.

Bis Später!
Emz

pics

Diederik van Silfhout and us! and Valentina Truppa on Chablis from Italy

Last day of the Pony Champs

Nearly time to start packing for our journey home.
Today we have seen the best ponies in all 3 disciplines. The individual dressage final for the top 15 competitiors saw pelnty of good moveers; the consistent impression was of submission and self-carriage; all of these ponies could perform snesational walk canter transitions from one 10 m circle to the next in balance,on the bit and still maintain their tempo, fantastic. It was lovely to see how tractable the ponies were- the Spanish rider's younger sister was able to cool down her pony after the test.

The final stage of the 3 day event saw Great Britain hold onto the lead right through the competition. Pony competition for the eventing squad in GB has been an 8 year project so far for coach and chef d'equipe. 6 ponies and riders were selected from 150 ponies to make up the GB team after 6 seleection events over the past year.

Showjumping was exciting; riders trying to go clear as well as under time. Some wonderfully balanced ponies with great scope represented around 13 nations. Today the course included several combinations and a liverpool with a course maxiimum of 1.35m high, spread of 1.45 and 1.6 for spread of the triple bar. Sadly, we had to go back to our hotel before the final jump off so no pics of the winning round.

Julian & Sarah

Julian & Sarah
We'd like to say thanks to Jenny Carroll for making this trip possible for us
all, we have learnt much from the many stables, and competitions that we have
visited over the past weeks, we will take home with us a great understanding
of the German way, and can't wait to apply our new knowledge and inspiration
to our own horses and ponys.

We would like to also thank our parents and
supervisors, for all the time and money they have invested into the tour.


It has been a eventful couple of weeks, although we did manage to get enough time
to go see Harry Potter and do tours of the towns we visited....Which we all
thouroughly enjoyed!

The bit of riding we did get to do was excellent! We think
that it certainly won't be long until it is Australia, and New Zealand who are
taking out the gold medals in dressage and eventing!!

We are looking forward to
our next tour.

.Julian & Sarah

Cross Country Day

The competition for ponies started earlier in the week with controversy over the seemingly liberal height measurements and wehn we arrive at the competition there are quite a few "ponies" that tower over anything we have at home. The consisitent quality and type of sport pony however was very impressive; we spent the morning wathcin a showjumping class for German riders, the consolation class for those who did not make the top 15 for the dressage individual final ( which is to be held on Sunday) then headed out to the cross country.
The setting - as Christoph Hess would say - WOW.
A stunning valley surrounded by forest with a few natural water features provided a great backdrop for some challenging fences and a great galloping course.
The ponies were fit, bold and mostly under control! Most of our riders had not seen an event like this before and I think they may be heading towards eventing shortly.
Christoph Hess was won of the members of thr ground jury; he met with us after the cross country and talked to the riders about the importance of learning to ride a galloping horse; to ride over undulating country and to negotiate obstacles as part of the development of every rider's natural balance, coordination and confidence. Young riders are actively encouraged not to specialse too early in their career in Germany and ponies play a very important part by providing animals of an appropriate size for children to develop a good basic position and independnat seat.

Off to the Pony Championships - with a short detour

After a hectic week in Munster we are off to Siegen and Freudenberg for the European Pony Championships. On the way we stopped at a trekking centre for a trail ride. Our luck looked like it still hadn't changed for riding as there were thunder storm warnings for the area and the owners were initially reluctant to take the ride out. You can understand their concern when you look at the report on the fire started by lightening that destroyed some of the facilities at the riding club that was to be used for the championships (see the report in the internet links) a few weeks before the competition was to begin.

The weather finally cleared & the riders managed to get out into the picturesque countryside.
The owner was impressed with the kids' riding & invited them back for a longer ride & BBQ the next day. Sadly, we couldn't take up the invitiation as we would be watching dressage, showjumping and the cross country phase of the pony champs 3DE.

Some disappointments and some special opportunities

Our riding plans have had to change this week with some of the horses becoming unavailable at the last minute. This has been a great disappointment to all of the riders and their parents- as well as me.
Sara couldn't wait for the lessons- she had a pony ride during the Young Rider Championships.

Instead, a few other wonderful opprtunities to watch high profile riders became possible.
Alisha and Kate were taken to watch a lesson given by Monica Theoderescu.
Emily & Julian accompanied Daniel Hoffstadt to some clients stables where he worked 5 horses.
Sara, Dimity, Emily and Steve went on an adventure by bus, train & taxi to meet Hubertus Schmidt; they were able to spend a few hours watching him train which in a little way made up for not being able to ride today.
All of these demonstrations have reinforced again the wonderful presentations and talks we have had with riders, breeders, judges & coaches. I'm sure all of the riders own horses will benefit greatly from this experience -despite the disappointment of limited riding.

Nordrhein-Westfalisches Landgestut

Today we visited the Landgestute where some 150 Westfalian stallions stand at stud. About 50 of the stallions move to breeding stations throughout the region during the breeding season.
It is getting close to the end of the German breeding season and most of the stallions have now returned although during our visit there were quite a few mares waiting to be inseminated.
Wesfalia has the largest number of cold blood stallions in Germany and we wish we could be here to see them in a quadrille or in harness at the stallion show in September but we will have to wait until we can visit again.
Paradox has been immortalised in the statue shown as he was the first Westfalian stallion whose progeny have earned a million DM.
Off to Siegen and Freudenberg tomorrow to see the European Pony Championships.

Demonstrations. lessons and hospitality

We have had the opportunity to watch Ingrid Klimke and Susan Miesner demonstrate their methods and explain their philosophies based on classical principles. We have been invited to dinner by the Isselhorst family and some of Ralf's friends students and clients have provided us with horses including Martin Plewa of the Wesphalian Riding School, Hennie Sommer of Hengst Station Holkenbrink and Daniel Hoffstadt.
As well we have visited the DOKR where we saw Carola Cappelmann training as well as spending money at the famous saddleries in both Warendorf and Munster.

Munster Riding and Watching part 2

Here are some more of our group.

Munster Riding and Watching

We have had a hectic time in Munster; plenty to see and much information to take in. Each day we have had at least one visit to a stud or training centre and everyone has now had the chance to ride & put into practice some of what we have been seeing, walking free and loose to warm-up; allowing the horse's neck to stretch out and forward so the horse can lift the back and stretch the topline are two significant concepts for our riders to take home. We have been very very fortunate to meet some very generous people during our visit. Here are a few pics of some of the tour members.

European YR & Junior Champs update

After a few computer problems we are back on line.
The champs of course finished a few days ago and already so much more has happened so watch for the next post with info on our time in Muntser.
We were impressed with the German and Dutch riders -their consistency was obvious but we really enjoyed watching the Italian riders who won the bronze medal in the teams in both junior and young riders. We met the coach and asked her how training is managed in Italy; since 2004 there has been a structured squad for juniors and young riders; the riders meet before major competitions but they also participate in competitions where they ride a test one day, have feeedback from their coach and judges , then ride the same test the next day. Our riders thought this sounded a great idea.

Valentina Truppa took out bronze in the individual and Gold in the freestyle, while German and Dutch riders took out the other placings.

We were also lucky enough to speak with Jennie Loriston-Clarke after the junior individual test; she commented on the importance of accuracy and preparation for each movement; too many marks were lost with abrupt transitions and rushing into movements consequently leading to unbalanced horses.

Day 5,6,7

We have had a few computer problems but hope to have some new updates up shortly.
Jenny

Day 4 Part 1 Individual Competition and Gala Evening

Day 4 and the pressure begins to build again. Riders are now drawn in ranked order from the teams results so today we see a few riders who are desperate to make up for not so good scores in the teams in the hope that they can make it into the freestyle. We saw quite a few mistakes with movements not on the marker but a few nervous horses from the earlier competition did improve. One of the German combinations scores 69.85% which would have put them in the top 8 in the teams test so perhaps she has a chance for Sunday.The Austrian rider pictured Jacqueline Toniutti and Willibrands Riverdanced also improved thier placing with 65.65%
The Gala evening was a big highlight today; the theme of Circus under the starlight began with buskers , fire jugglers and acrobats around the entrance to the grounds. All the local clubs participated with every activity on offer from Scottish Pipe band to an enthusiastic if not exactly polished performance by the local belly dance group.
2 presentations were a big hit with everyone: The working dogs that could herd goats over a fence and separate black from white ducks & put them back into their cages. The other was a presentation by the police horses that were subjected to fire crackers, walking over balloons, jumping over fire and rolling a huge ball, a young rider quadrille, harness display and many other acts followed.
The finale was to be a big surprise - although most people suspected that the top German riders would make an appearance; sadly, we didn't get to see as it was already 12.00 and we had a taxi to catch.

Day 3 Young Riders part 2

The competition continues with the 2nd half of the riders for each team. It was also schools day & as you can see, some of the kids dressed up especially for the day out, I counted a few Indians as well as the cowboys pictured.
One of the expected stars of the competition is Valentina Truppa and Chablis from Italy. Valentina is one of the most successful Young Riders having won the individual gold in 2006. The Italian supporters were out in force but today's tests was conservative.
Judge Gothilf Riexinger who spoke to us after the competition commented that many of the riders were under considerable pressure to complete a safe test to ensure a good team result; he thought many of the riders who often score around 74% were today only managing a top score of 71%. Valentina finished in 3rd place but we are looking forward to seeing her in the individual.
The big grey Peralta Pinha (Lus) and Fereine Boaventtura; impressed us all; they was certainly working hard to produce an elastic and active test.

Day 2 Brookhouse stud and part 1 junior teams competition

After meeting up with other members of the group on Tuesday evening for a great Italian meal near the cathedral in Heidelberg and a sleep most of the effects of 24 hrs of flying started to fade. Our first visit was to Brookhouse stud where Emma Hindle, her family and business partners stand 10 stallions. Emma was the most successful rider at WEG 2006 from the British dressage team. Emma showed us some of her younger stallions including Curator(pictured in the indoor school) a 3 year old by Conteur out of a Weltmeyer mare. Emma and Andreas Muller answered many questions for our group about selecting horses for breeding and competition. Thank you Emma and Andreas, we know that you delayed leaving for a show to host our visit.

We arrived on Day 1 of the competition to watch part 1 of the FEI Junior teams test. 25 countries are repesented so the teams class takes 2 days to complete.
The riders in oour group are going to ad some comments on thier impression of the quality of the horses and the standard of ridiing in the next few days so have a look at the comments section after this blog.
1st and 2nd place in part 1 went to German riders Jill de Ridder and FBW Disco Boy 70.60% and Fabienne Lutkemeier on Bouton 2 70.55% .
Austrian rider Christopher Erdmann and Belmondo 110 in 7th place on 64.70% (see the picture).
Trade stands were also a draw card; how about the truck Emily H & Tricia are inspecting with pop up grooms quarters in the roof, push out wall for entertaining, automatic drinkers for the horses plus much, much more- only 380000 euro.