S'Hertogenbosch CDI-W

This past weekend Orion and I competed in the s'Hertogenbosch CDI-W for the last World Cup qualifier for the western european league. One of my best friends, Cat, flew in from her home in London to help me out, and I would like to put an official shout out there to Cat, for being such a wonderful friend and support! 

Here is a picture from our departure from our  home "Amselfhof Walle"

Here we are, ready to start our road trip! Cat is in the picture above and that me in the drivers seat in the picture below.

Holland Bound!

The trip went smoothly and we arrived in s'Hertogenbosch without any complications. The Grand Prix class was on the friday and the top 15 riders qualified to go on to ride the Freestyle on saturday. 

Above is a pictures of me getting Orion braided while he is enjoying his breakfast! 

Show gear, ready ... 

Lecoya! The best dog in the world  ;-) 

Here I am visualizing my test and of course Lecoya, my 'side kick' is giving me a little extra moral support :-) 

And here we are giving it our "all" in our test! 

The Grand Prix went decent, it wasn't perfect because we had a little bobble in our canter zig zag and I have to admit that I didn't ride with full confidence, so we didn't get full marks on our extensions, which I was really mad at myself for. I have learned that being in the right mindset when you ride down that centreline is vitally important. At this competition there are three different warm up rings and you gradually get moved up into another ring before your test, so basically it's a really long distance between the first warm up and the competition ring, and there are so many distractions along the way, with shops and people everywhere! During this process I forgot to bring my confidence with me and left it somewhere in the first warm up (once again another important lesson learned!). We scored a 67%, which was still ok, but most importantly we qualified for the freestyle. After my ride on friday I was most certainly determined to make sure I didn't make the same mistake for my freestyle and I knew that I needed to ride with confidence in order to give Orion the chance to shine like the star he is! And with exactly this mind set, we rocked out boldly to our Usher and Rihanna music.   We earned a score of 70% and ended up 13th overall.  I am so proud of Orion because during the last couple of competitions in all of these difficult indoor venues he has really handed his trust over to me and is no longer SO distracted my the environment, instead he stays focused on me and really fights with with his whole heart through every test.  

Here is a u-tube link of our Freestyle: 

S'Hertogenbosch Freestyle