CDIO Aachen! Sunshine, storms and a seriously good time!

It was so exciting to be part of Team Australia this year and the first mention must be of a HUGE congratulations to my team mates Brett and Lyndal. Brett performed like a true champion coming all the way through to the kur and Lyndal was great also wracking a great performance that has to put her into serious WEG contention now.

I was satisfied with Reli, although not our best display this year, he did a solid performance and with the heavy schedule and some 10,000km covered in the past few months I can only be happy with my little man! A great big thank you to all our Aussie supporters, owners, family, grooms and friends who made us all feel like champions!!!!

First up for the competition was Ferra in the CDI 4*. I was perhaps a little too ambitious to start  and I did not expect the mini typhoon that hit Aachen just 20 minutes before our start time. Ferra became super frightened and it was all I had to navigate her through. Oh well, my famous mentor always told me that we have to have these experiences in order to learn how to deal with them. Positive thinking anyways!

The sun came up the next day an there was a real Aussie, Aussie, Aussie in the air! This time Relis turn. He feels tired and missed a bit of his 'Tarzan' personality that was shining in Pompadour. I had a few little gliches throughout the test but it was a good feeling to know that the quality of our work must be improving as the score does not drop too low despite the mistakes.

As a team Australia made a super effort with all 3 of us over 65% which just shows how much we are improving as the last time I competed in the team the top score was just 65%. In a couple of years who knows how much we will have all improved again!

So enough from me for now and I will let the photos do the talking. Cheers, HB