I am exhausted after the long day of the first part of the Nations Cup in Aachen.  The class went from 9:00am to 5:00pm and was full of ups and downs.  The Olympic format is in effect for this show and this means that 3 combinations competed for each team plus a 4th combination from each nation was allowed to start as individuals.  Only the top 6 nations from today’s results as well as the top 12 individuals  will come back on Saturday to compete in the Grand Prix Special.  The compilation of the scores from both competitions will produce both the team medals and the individual placements, the top 15 from which will come back to contest for the individual medals in the Grand Prix Freestyle.

I am thrilled to report that Canada made the cut by placing ahead of Sweden, Denmark and Australia.  It was amazingly close as we were 100th of a percentage point behind Spain and less than 2 percentage points behind Belgium.  I was very proud of all our riders and horses and am looking forward to the next part of the competition where we will fight to bring up our ranking.  They all did well and know they can be great, so I can’t wait to watch them do it in the Special!  And it was so nice to see our individual rider, Wendy Christoff with her horse, Pfalstaff, do a very nice job, earning many very good scores throughout her test!

I also want to say how amazing it has been watching Edward Gal on the fantastic stallion, Moorlands Totilas.  Not only is this the finest horse of this era, but I believe him to be the finest ever born into the sport of Dressage.  Such beauty along with power and elasticity is just plain miraculous to witness!  And other equine stars abound from quite a few countries these days, so the “bar” is extremely high if one wants to be at the top of the leader board.

That being said, I still have to wonder when I see horses with absolutely no true canter or walk scoring up very near 70%, just because they hike their legs up in piaffe and passage.  Doesn’t a horse have to have 3 clear gaits at all anymore to achieve high scores?  Sorry but this is a very bad trend, if it indeed is one.

I congratulate all the Teams which made it into the next round as well as the individuals.  Let the Games continue!

Cheers!

RD