April, May and June in a Nutshell

Hello Everyone, its been a while since my last post- so I decided to make this post worth your while with lots of pictures :-)

April 21- 24 saw Orion and Blitz along with Heike, her groom (Hilke) and Heike's two Grand Prix horses in Stadl Paura Austria.  

A sneak peek behind the scenes :-) Hanging out in the stables, on the left is Heike with the best dog in the world (Lecoya) and on the right is Hilke and I

Heike giving me some important tips with Blitz

This CDI took place over Easter weekend, so my mother flew out with my two little siblings Ross and Jade and they also brought my grandmother (Ursula) along, which is the elegant lady in the purple in the pictures above and below

Bunny Ears for Easter! 

On Easter Sunday the kids enjoyed a very adventurous easter egg hunt out in the back field of the show grounds.

Family picture :-) Starting from the left is my grandmother, Ross, my mom- Dagmar, Jade and I

Orion in the Grand Prix 

Blitz in the Prix St. George

Here is a link to Orion and I's Grand Prix

Stadl Paura Grand Prix

http://www.youtube.com/user/PiaFortmuller?feature=mhsn#p/a/u/1/oFnQyZenk7g

Above is a picture of Heike on board Feleciano and Orion and I in the awards ceremony

All and all Stadl Paura was a very successful weekend for the whole crew, Heike had very good placings with both of her Grand Prix horses. And Orion and I achieved our highest scores together yet in both the Grand Prix and in the Grand Prix Freestyle and placed 3rd

The weekend of May 5-8 we headed over to Austria again to the Bartlgut Gestut for the Neuhofen CDI. 

 Orion and I in the victory gallop. 

Blitz and I in the Prix St. George

The Neuhofen CDI was also a very successful show for the whole crew, especially Heike with her two Grand Prix horses- she won both the Grand Prix for Special with Quantico and the Grand Prix Freestyle with Feleciano. Orion also had a very good go, we placed 5th with some very solid scores. 

On May 14 Anited and I headed to a local show close to our home base and placed in our class. I am so proud of how Anited is coming along because I always say that Anited is my little fire cracker, but he is slowly starting to learn how to put his fire to work. I have attached a link below to see Anited's test.

Anited- L level test

http://www.youtube.com/user/PiaFortmuller?feature=mhsn

Then after the whole month of competitions every weekend- I finally had a weekend off- and I decided it would be a good adrenaline rush to join my cousin Louis on a downhill biking trip.

Above is a picture of Louis and I ready to hit the slopes! 

Although I thought that this would be a really fun idea, I need to add that I have never been downhill biking before... but because I grew up in Canada- in the rocky mountains- I thought that I would have no trouble riding a bike down these German slopes... but nope! This was no the case- first of all I would like to highlight the fact that they actually have big mountains here in Germany and second I would like to mention that downhill biking is tough!! To make a long story short I flipped over my handle bars on the first run and tore the ligaments in my shoulder....  See resulting picture below...

As you can see in the picture above I had to wear a brace for a bit, but I made some minor adjustments to this brace so that I could keep on riding..... :-) The person standing next to me in my good friend, Kelsey, who flew in from Vancouver for a visit. Thanks for visiting Kels, it was so great to see you!! 

And finally my last adventure to report is the Wiesbaden CDI, which took place this past weekend (June 10-12). This is the reason why I adjusted my shoulder brace so that I could keep on riding because I needed to prepare for this show. Heike helped me a lot in my preparations for this competition because I didn't have full strength in my right arm, and I received some very strict warnings from the doctors that if I over did it, my shoulder joint would blow completely apart and I would have to have surgery. 

The good news is that my shoulder is healing very nicely and although my shoulder did a good job holding up through the competition, my nerves didn't. Orion and I both got some serious stage fright in front of the huge crowd and the big castle at the Wiesbaden CDI. But that's the name of the game, there are always ups and downs, and this competition was a very important learning experience for both Orion and I. The only way that Orion and I will become comfortable in such an intimidating environment is by getting out there and doing it. Which is exactly what we are going to do because next week we head off to Austria again for another CDI, I keep ya'll posted on how it goes :-)