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Monday, November 22, 2010

CDI at Stuttgart 2010







What an incredible weekend. I had the fortunate experience of attending the Stuttgart horse show as a spectator and it was amazing! The show is run and organized to the second and that schedule was posted two weeks in advance. There was an incredible "Vegas style" show Friday evening with the famous Lorenzo "The Flying Frenchman". I took a very short clip on my camera and am posting it here but it did not do him justice. Short clip of Lorenzo at Stuttgart!

 I found a super video online to show that gives you a better understanding of the kind of incredible horse person he is. Here is the link to the video of Lorenzo online. Lorenzo demonstration It is incredible and shows exactly what he can do. Don't miss this one.

I drove to the Bremen airport this past Thursday and took a flight direct to Stuttgart. Upon arrival, a shuttle service provided by the show came and picked up myself and Nick Fyffe, from Australia, who has been working for Catherine the last couple of months. Also in the shuttle was Madeleine Winter-Shulze, sponsor of Isabelle Werth. We drove to the KongressHotel Europe and it was the host hotel for all of the riders. It was so great to see all of the riders, I felt like I was in Hollywood. Edward Gal, Isabelle Werth, Ulla Salsgeber, and Hubertus Schmidt would all be the next table over at breakfast. Catherine had given me a special pass so that I was able to go back into the stabling and into the warm up areas. It was very interesting watching everyone warm their horses up the morning before the test. It was very educational. Thank you Catherine!


The jog was on Thursday and the Grand Prix for the Freestyle was on Friday. At this particular CDI 5 star they hold a Grand Prix for those going into the Freestyle and then a Grand Prix for those competing in the Special. There were twelve invited to partake in the Grand Prix for Freestyle held on Friday morning. The results are listed below. Catherine had a really nice solid test and finished 4th. A very good accomplishment!









The Freestyle's were amazing. The horses were great and the atmosphere was electric. It was a packed house and Winyamaro came in like, "whoo-hoo awards ceremony". He was excited but held it all together. Here are the placings for the freestyle, Winyamaro was 6th.





Isabelle Werth's winning ride on Sachmo 82.5%



One other thing I had to mention is the driving competition. Very exciting to watch. The warm up for the drivers was intense. You had 6 teams all warming up in a 20 by 40 meter dressage size arena. 
Check out this video of the warm up that Catherine took: Drivers warming up!

Here is the winner of the day! An Australian team, Boyd Excell. Boyd Excell's winning round!

Just for fun here is a clip from WEG that was posted on youtube so you can see how an outdoor course compares. They are quite the atheletes! WEG 2010 Combined Driving Marathon


1 comment:

Karen Petty said...

Crazy Driving warmup!!!! Thanks for posting