Another three month recap....

Hello everyone, Three months have passed by again since my last update and I'll give you all three guesses as to what the boys and I have been up to during this time... ;-) yep! you guessed it, showing! At the end of June we were at the Swarovski CDI in Wattens Austria, which was the most beautiful competition I have ever been to. 

As you can see in the picture below the competition arena has the most impressive backdrop of the Alps. I must say it was truly magical to ride here

Here are some pictures of Orion being treated like the King that he is and he most certainly acts accordingly :-)

Here is a picture of Heike on her horse "Sunny" and I'm riding Anited

Orion and I performing the Grand Prix 

Orion all "jazzed" up in the victory gallop. We ended up placing 13th in the freestyle and considering all the top british riders where there, along with many of the leading German team members, I was very proud of Orion:-)

 Now that the summer show season is winding down I find myself reflecting, and the first thing that comes to mind is the amount of kilometres we've covered and I can truly say that each kilometre was filled with a learning experience. The most recent competition Orion and I did was at Anakenhof on the 16-18 of September, there we placed 5th in the Grand Prix Special. This was a very important show for both Orion and I because we were able to perform two clean test (both the Grand Prix and the Special), and I must honestly admit that after the shock and stage fright which Orion and I experienced at the Wiesbaden CDI, it took some time before I was able to find my confidence in the ring again because I was gripped with a serious case of 'fear of failure'. But that's the name of the game, and this pressure will always be there, the deciding difference is how you deal with it. And I've learned that the negative experiences are just as important as the positive ones, because this is when you learn and grow the most. My brother Loisl shared an important quote with me recently, "the one who wins is the one who falls down 7 times and gets up 8". I find this quote very inspirational because emphasizes the importance of integrity and also address the fact that success is a journey not a destination. 

It is now October and the boys and I are able to take a deep breath because we have no competitions this month, which has been very refreshing and we are now taking the time to prepared for the winter indoor  competition season.

Thanks for checking in and keeping up with me :-)