The first start of the outdoor season is always exciting. Samuel Hit (s. Sandro Hit) of owner Ingrid Evers started his first FEI six year old test, definitely not an easy test for a six year old that has only been trained for a little over a year. But Sammie, as we call him, has a great competition spirit and is very willing and coöperative, so today he really tried his hardest and came home with a great score of 71.8 %!

Video: http://youtu.be/qTI8DomDWLs

Student Bodien Grijpstra has won the Northern Indoor Competition with our mare Yauwkje BV in the class L1! Only the first winter Yauwkje is competing, she has proven herself to be a wonderful dressage horse with a lot of capabilities. In the selections she was already always in the top of the rankings, placing herself for the final yesterday evening friday march 23rd. In this final Bodien and Yauwkje showed a wonderful performance and won!!

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Planning a trip to Australia we decided to combine it with some clinics. We started in Victoria where Robyn Pearce organised a clinic, then went to West Australia to Tashlin and Shannon Hall, continued on to Queensland to Clinton and Mary Mullin and ended in New South Wales where Carol Raymen organised the clinic. All the participants made a lot of improvement and were very happy to see it was possible to train their horses to respond to smaller aids and improve immensely in just one hour. It is inspiring to work with people that are so committed to their sports. In Holland people tend to complain if they have to drive two hours to a competition, in Australia that would be about the closest to home.... 

It was also a special treat to be asked to teach the first Australian Grand Prix combination with a Friesian, Jeremy Janjic with Django of Cacharel. Django has a lot of talent for passage and piaffe and it was great working with a horse and rider with such a positive attitude.

BEST WISHES TO ALL OF YOU AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

All that's new and coming, we want to try! So because of the enthusiastic remarks of Tineke Bartels about the Flexchair training system to train the seat of the rider, we decided to give it a try. We went to Saskia Heijkants from Fysiotherapy Wouters Brongers (http://www.fysio-wb.nl/Page2.aspx) and had remarkable results in a short time! Not only do you see what happens with your seat, it seems much easier to correct it when you are not on a horse, but on the flexchair where you can see on the screen and in the mirror what's happening, figuring out how to correct it, and then get back on the horse and practice it.

On the images you see the Flexchair training, then in practice the flying change from left to right, first with shoulders not even, then with shoulders even.

It has been an extremely busy summer this year. Not only did Jenny do three trips to South Africa to give clinics and judge shows, she also gave dressageclinics in Holland almost every week she was available.

There are still some more clinics to come, not only in Holland and Belgium, but also around february in Australia, and about four clinics in South Africa next year.

If you want any information about those, you can contact us by e-mail at Dit e-mail adres is beschermd tegen spambots. U heeft Javascript nodig om het te kunnen zien.

After Wolter had proved he was ready for competition in the Small Tour, it was time to add a new challenge for this summer: to trie and get the 60 % in the Intermediaire II to get to Grand Prix level.

Just before Jenny went to Australia she already started once in the Intermediaire II in Herentals, earning a nice first score of 58,6 %. This certainly gave us trust it is possible to get to the 60 % limit in the next few months. After her visit to Australia and New Zealand for 3 1/2 weeks judging and giving dressageclinics, the training was picked up again and at the 1st of may they started in Sint Niklaas for the first time again, earning a score of 57,5 %. With a little more practice it seems perfectly possible to earn 60 % sometime this summer, it would be a dream come true to start yet another Friesian stallion at Grand Prix level!

At sunday 27th of february Jenny and Wolter V (Rypke x Naen) made their first comeback after a two year break due to an injury (one year out, one year recovery). They started at their former level, the FEI Intermediaire I. It was exciting to see what Wolter would do for the first time again. Warming up turned out to be a bit of a problem, since Wolter was not used to a crowded warmup arena anymore, but in the competition arena he gained back his concentration and they had a beautiful ride. The results were amazing: two judges geve 60,86 procent and one judge gave 66,86 procent, good for a total result of 62,8 %!!

Wolter is back!!