tiistaina, tammikuuta 31, 2012

Vet check

Today in the afternoon was the vet check. All 3 horses ( Sini Spirit, Donnelly and Liebe) passed it :) so no worries about that anymore. Only Donnelly is not drinking very well and is still week so I could do only a short warm up with him. Sini Spirit feels good. I got to ride him on the main arena. There is a lot to see because the show ground is not completely ready yet. They are still bringing flowers to the arenas, cutting the grass and cleaning the judge towers. That's good training for Sini to get to know everything before the first test.
The weather is nice, at night the temperature gets near +0 and during the day +20!

The first day

This morning we had here +2 degrees and I thought in Germany is cold! It was freezing outside and the windows from our car were frozen. We drive about 5 minutes from our hotel to the stables. Me and my groom went there at half past seven to feed the horses. They all looked hungry. While the horses were eating we reorganized out tack box. It was so full of stuff that we barely fit in. About 9:30 I started to ride. My plan today was to stretch the horses and make them loose after the long trip. Sini Spirit and Heimliche Liebe were fresh and Et Voila also started the warm up with bucking around the arena. Only Donnelly felt still tired and I didn't ride him too long.
After riding we wanted to find a place to eat lunch. The problem was that everything was closed, it was siesta.
Later in the afternoon I took Sini and Liebe out for a walk and my groom handwalked Donnelly and Et Voila. Tomorrow ist the vet check and before that I'm going to ride the horses.

sunnuntaina, tammikuuta 29, 2012

Flight to Spain

I'm on my way to Spain. I'm in Düsseldorf at the airport waiting for my plane. I have to change the plane once in Madrid and then I will fly to Jerez. From there I'm going to rent a car and then drive to Vejer de la Frontera where the show ground is.
The horses arrived there yesterday. Donnelly had stomachache last night but everything seems to be ok now. My groom has been walking with the horses and I will do light warm up later after I have arrived.

torstaina, tammikuuta 26, 2012

Sunshine tour - the journey begins

Yesterday was a busy day. We put everything what we'll need for the hole trip together and packed all our stuff for horses, feed and hay into the lorry. There was a lot of stuff because I'm taking 4 horses with me: Sini Spirit, Donnelly, Heimliche Liebe and Equestricons Et Voila. The horses and my groom will drive with Johannsmann to Spain to Sunshine Tour.
Early this morning, 3 a.m. we made the horses ready for the transport. We load the horses and the lorry left 3.45 a.m from our stables. I need to stay for few more days at home and ride because Hubertus will not be there over the weekend and our other bereiter can't work because of the broken arm. I will fly afterwards to Spain. The lorry drove first to Aachen where they took one more horse with them and continued towards France. The first night they will spent near Lyon so the horses can sleep in a stall. So far everything went well.

lauantaina, tammikuuta 07, 2012

Drachten

We arrived to the show ground after 5 hours drive in the storm. The wind was really strong and I was able to drive only 60 or 70km/h. There was a big surprise waiting for us: only 2 boxes for my 3 horses. I took Donnelly und Heimliche Liebe with me for training. I took almost an hour to organize one box more and in that time there were other trailers and lorries which were parked too close to our lorry that we could't take our horses out. All dressage riders had to come on the same time because they were not aloud to come on Wednesday because of the weather. That's why there were totally chaos also during the vet check. So we didn't have the best start for our show. After vet check I trained with all my horses. Sini felt fine and relaxed.

On Friday morning I took Sini out for a walk inside the main arena. At first he was a bit spooky but settled down quite well. The Gran Prix was in the evening. Sini was good in the warm up but just before we went my groom noticed blood in Sini's mouth. We wiped it away but unfortunately Sini's mouth got a little pink again during the test and the judges had to disqualify me. Such a bad luck! I'm totally disappointed because this was a really important show for us. Now there's even less shows where I can get the points for Olympic games. Now I need to sleep over one night and then we have to start to make new plans for next 2 months.

tiistaina, tammikuuta 03, 2012

The next big show for me and Sini Spirit is coming. We are going to compete in Drachten, Netherlands in this coming weekend. Sini feels good and I think we are ready to show again for a big publikum. Our last show in Jöllenbeck in November brougt us lot of self-confidence. I'm excited and can't wait our journey to begin in 2 days!

Viimeistelyt käynnissä

Moikka!

Tulevana viikonloppuna 6.-8.1. starttaan Sini Spiritin kanssa Hollannin Drachtenissa. Saa nähdä miten päästään perille, sillä tänne Saksaan ja myös Hollantiin on luvattu kovia myrskyjä. Vet check on torstaina iltapäivällä, joten matkan päälle aiomme lähteä torstaina aamusta aikaisin. Tähän mennessä viimeistelyt Sinin kanssa ovat sujuneet hyvin. Hieman jo jännittää sillä edellisistä suurista kilpailuistamme on jo aikaa ja tulos oli mikä oli. Kuitenkin marraskuun kilpailumme Jöllenbeckissä on tuonut molemmille itseluottamusta ja hyvillä mielin ollaan kisoihin lähdössä!