After London... Back in the game!

So after London I came back with renewed energy and determination, because the biggest thing that I learned out of my Olympic experience is... Hard work pays off!  So I've jumped right back into my regular training routine. 

Orion most certainly deserved a bit of a break so I spent the first couple of weeks taking him on trail rides and I let him play on the lunge. And most importantly for all of you that have taken Orion for grass you all know just how much he loves his grass over anything and everything, so he had lots of well deserved grazing time ;-) 

I took my mare "Santa Maria"  to a national show the other week she  was a super star and won both of her classes, she is a real 'Diva' at the shows and just lots showing off her stuff! 

 For  all of you who remember my beautiful long legged “Zeph” officially called “Zephyrous Utopia” he decided about a year ago that he liked jumping much better than this darn ol’ boring dressage stuff ;-) Here is a picture of Zeph in action, its so much fun to see this horse in his element he just loves flying over those fences! Here is also a link to Zeph galloping though his first cross country experience... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBV33NQLAiM             

Zephyrous Utopia

www.youtube.com

Zephyrous Utopia

 Some more really noteworthy news is that Orion had some really special visitors come all the way from Nieuwvenn,  Holland. Cora and Jos from "Hoeve Livonia" are a part of the family that raised Orion as a foal all the way to age 5. It was so amazing that Cora and Jos came to see Orion and they gave me the most special present in the form of a CD with pictures of Orion's first moments and as a foal and then as he was growing up. So cute!

 Thank you once again to Cora and Jos for the nice visit! And here is my official promise to the whole "Hoeve Livonia" family, Orion will stay with me and will be spoiled by me and treated like a king for the rest of his life :-)

The next exciting news is from the CDI in Wroclaw, Poland. Which was held September 13-16, 2012

 We drove through the night and arrived on the thursday morning at 7:00 so that Orion had some time to rest before the vet check at 5 pm. 

Here are some pictures of the facility, the show was held on a the racetrack property and it was truly beautiful there. 

On friday Heike arrived with our wonderful Polish tour guide "Anna"- here is a picture of Heike coaching me and Anna filming. Great team work ;-) 

As always Anited was also along for the trip being the trusty travel partner that he is. Coming along for all of these trips has been so good for Anited because he is learning and growing up to be quite the professional competition horse. After Orion, Anited, has some really big shoes to fill, so I'm hoping Orion is whispering all of his secretes into Anited's ear on all the long lorry rides! 

I mentioned above already how much Orion loves his grass, here is a picture of Orion enjoying the grass in Poland. And of course my trusty sidekick Lecoya was along for the trip. Lecoya loves her frisbee as much as Orion loves his grass, so all in all this sums up a picture of two VERY happy animals ;-)

Saturday was the Grand Prix and I had a super warm up, Orion was so sharp underneath me and I have never felt him so solid in everything. But Orion's rider (yes me!!) wasn't able to keep all the magic happening underneath me in the show ring, I ended up losing some of his impulsion and made a mistake in our line of twos. And believe me, Heike sure let me know that it "could have been better!!" when I came out of the ring. But despite the mistakes we did also have some great highlights and scored a 68.681% placing us 3rd and most importantly qualifying us for the freestyle! 

 While I was warming up for the freestyle on Sunday the batteries for my coach phone (that is the ear piece I have which Heike can instruct me with) gave up, so although Heike stood on the side of the ring and could call out the odd instructions, I had to rely much more on my own instincts and feeling because its not the same direct feedback without the ear piece. In hindsight, this slight technical glitch ended up working out as a great preparation for the freestyle because I got that much more tuned in with Orion. So that when we rode down the centre line we were "one" and simply allowed the music to guide us. 

 Orion rocked out all of his fancy dance moves with his whole heart and we scored a 73.375% and placed second!! This is the best result Orion and I have gotten yet, and its our first world cup points. Yeah! ;-) 

 Thumbs up for team work!!

As always thanks for checking in and keeping in touch!