Nice results in Bettenrode

Small changes of plan, not everything went flawlessly - but all in all a successful weekend. And by that I do not mean only my competitions, but all Fleyenhof riders who were in action at the Bettenroeder Dressage Days.

During training there on the showground, I thought that Vainqueur was just too hot and did thus not concentrate well enough during the flying changes. So I decided to not show him in the Louisdor Tour.

Let's start with the youngsters: Charlotte and Esperado (by Escolar) did not only win their class for young dressage horses, but also qualified for the Bundeschampionat with a score of 8.5.

Anna and Superstar (by Sir Heinrich) took third place in the medium class for young dressage horses with a score of 7.4. Anna also had her first starts in St. Georg and Inter II - a most valuable experience for our apprentice, which was even topped off with a ribbon for fifth place in the St. Georg with Bon Scolari.

Katharina had an early ride in Aachen and that way made it possible to compete in Bettenrode. With Fuerst Fernando, she finished ninth in the warm-up competition for the Nuremberg, and eighth in the actual qualifier - both times receicing well over 70 per cent. Unfortunately, the black stallion was not the freshest this weekend.

I am again very happy with D'Alessandro's performance in the Nuremberg. We came second in the warm-up competition (73.244 %), which is really pleasing considering this was just his second show on S-level. We had two mistakes: First he ran away when doing the flying change in the canter half-passes, and did so again in the flying changes. With a  fresh and young stallion, I don't find such things overly tragic... And he still got 71.732%, fifth place.

For Anush, a good weekend amounted to a special result: With Flovino's Feiner Kerl, he scored 66.24% in the Grand Prix, and in the Spécial they went up to 68.203% - which meant fourth place and thus Anush's first Grand Prix placement. Congratulations!

I finished second in the Grand Prix with Beryll, although we had a few small mistakes. Toscana ended up in 5th place, which really pleased me in her first Grand Prix and after more than 18 months without being shown in competitions. In the Freestyle, the Bentley daughter almost outdid herself, went really well and we sensationally won the test.

In the Spécial, I had two big mistakes with Beryll: In the transition from passage to extended trot, he started cantering, and in the transition from passage to canter, he started on the wron leg. Nevertheless, we got a good score of 71.797 percent, among other details for a really good piaffe-passage tour.

Now you know why I am happy about this weekend!