Pia Virginia Fortmüller: Zakrow CDI

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Zakrow CDI

For the weekend of Nov. 8-10, we headed to the beautiful country of Poland for the Zakrow CDI. It was a 12 hour drive but we covered the distance by night and without any complications and all we all arrived fit and ready to perform! The Grand Prix for the Special was held on the friday and my trainer, Heike, rode her long time partner, Quantico to a golden finish and won both the Grand Prix with 68% and then on the Sunday she won the Grad Prix Special with 70%. Congratulations to Heike and Quadi :-)

Orion and I competed in the other division, the Grand Prix for the Freestyle, which was held on the saturday, and we had our best Grand Prix performance EVER, which lead us to the top of the leader board and we won the class with 68%!! I have been training with Jonny Hilberath more frequently over the last couple of months, and the thing that is so productive with Jonny’s insights and training philosophy is that he really focuses on improving the natural gaits of the horse and Jonny has really helped me tap into a whole other level of potential in Orion.

The freestyle was held on the Sunday and although Orion may be 17, he will truly always remain a frisky fighter at heart! Most horses would have been a little worn out with the way the scheduling was set up, because the Grand Prix was the last class held on Saturday night and the Freestyle was the first class on Sunday morning, but Orion danced down that centerline as fresh as ever! As we where performing to our Elton John freestyle, Orion added a little extra “jazz” to our choreography, so our test wasn’t perfect, but still good enough for a 72% and 2nd!!

Overall I am so unbelievably proud of Orion, every single day he amazes me with his incredibly focused work ethic and his zest and fight truly makes me laugh ;-) Over the last 3 years Orion and I have gotten to know each other so well and after countless hours of training I am starting to finally catch these special little moments where I can take a deep breathe and just enjoy the bound that has developed between us.

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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME....

I grew up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and will therefore always be a Canadian cowgirl at heart. After I graduated from high school I moved to Germany for a year where I lived and worked at Gestuet Tasdorf. I then returned to Canada to continue my education and moved to Vancouver British Columbia, I lived there for five years, where I trained full time with Canadian Olympian, Leslie Reid, during this time I finished my Bachelor of Psychology with a minor in early childhood education at Simon Fraser University. Upon completing my BA degree I made the decision to give my dressage career my full dedication. As of September 2009 I moved to Germany, to live, work and train towards my dream of representing Canada internationally. For the first 6 months of my move to Germany I trained with Canadian Olympian Leonie Bramall, who also works closely with German Olympian, Heike Kemmer, and as a result the opportunity presented itself for me to move to Amselhof Walle, where I lived for 4 years and trained full time with Heike Kemmer. During this time I also worked closely with the renowned German trainer, Jonny Hilberath. In the fall of 2013 I made the decision to work full time with Jonny Hilberath and I boarded at his stable in Abbendorf for most of 2014. Then in the fall of 2014 I moved my horses to Gestuet Famos which then lead me to my current home base which is a beautiful barn in Kirchewalsede. As of to date I train with both Anna Sophie Fibelkorn and her long time trainer Hans Heinrich Meyer Zu Strohen.

This is a blog which I have set up to to share my thoughts, interesting stories, motivational quotes and inspirational ideas.

You can also visit my web page:

http://www.piafortmuller.com/