News & Updates, 2008

It's official, Germany has won the Gold Medal for the Dressage Grand Prix Team competition. Silver goes to the Netherlands and Bronze to Denmark. USA placed 4th. Congratulations!

Rang	Name	Land	Pkt.
Gold	Kemmer / Capellmann / Werth	GER	72.917 Pkt.
Silber	Minderhoud / Schellekens-Bartels / Van Grunsven	NED	71.750 Pkt.
Bronze	Van Olst / Wittgenstein / Helgstrand	DEN	68.875 Pkt.
4.	King / Mcdonald / Peters	USA	67.819 Pkt.
5.	Kittel / Silfven / Brink	SWE	67.347 Pkt.
6.	Gregory / Hindle / Bechtolsheimer	GBR	66.806 Pkt.

Individual Ranking so far, with GP Special and the freestyle to go in the next couple of days.

Dressage Individual Grand Prix Day 2, HK Equestrian Venue(Shatin) - Status:Official
					Percentages and (rank)
Rank	Country	Horse No.	Rider	Horse Name	E	H	C	M	B	% Score
1			WERTH Isabell		75.625 (1)	76.667 (1)	75.000 (=1)	77.083 (1)	77.708 (1)	76.417
2			VAN GRUNSVEN Anky		73.125 (2)	74.792 (2)	75.000 (=1)	73.542 (2)	77.292 (2)	74.750
3			KEMMER Heike		72.083 (3)	71.250 (=5)	72.708 (3)	72.708 (3)	72.500 (3)	72.250
4			HINDLE Emma		71.458 (=4)	71.250 (=5)	71.875 (=4)	71.875 (=5)	69.167 (=14)	71.125
5			SCHELLEKENS-BARTELS Imke		71.250 (6)	71.875 (4)	71.875 (=4)	68.333 (=18)	71.042 (7)	70.875
6			KYRKLUND Kyra		71.458 (=4)	69.167 (=10)	69.375 (=10)	72.083 (4)	70.833 (=8)	70.583
7			KING Courtney		70.208 (8)	72.083 (3)	69.375 (=10)	68.750 (16)	71.875 (4)	70.458
8			ZU SAYN-WITTGENSTEIN Nathalie		69.792 (9)	70.625 (7)	69.792 (9)	71.875 (=5)	70.000 (=10)	70.417
9			CAPELLMANN Nadine		69.375 (10)	69.375 (9)	69.375 (=10)	71.458 (7)	70.833 (=8)	70.083
10			PETERS Steffen		70.417 (7)	67.292 (19)	70.208 (8)	70.417 (9)	71.667 (5)	70.000

The Olympic Games have started and the 3-Day eventing was the first of three Olympic equestrian events. Germany won the double Gold Medal, individual and team. Congrats!!!

Dressage at DevonWood. What a show...gorgeous venue, great weather, stiff competition, nice shopping vendors and and and...this is definitely a super event and we will be back for more next year.

FEI 5 year old Test, 2nd place with 68.2% (Friday). Sandra's sandbox buddy from Germany, Sabine Ense, placed 1st with the same score of 68.2% on her youngster Ardent Pleasure.

First Level - Test 4, 5th place out of 22 contenders with a score of 68.9% (Friday) even though the pilot went off course once - winning score was 71.3%

First Level - Test 4, 2nd place with 66.6% (Saturday) - (winning score was 67.3%)

These two had their First Level debut this weekend and won the High Point Andalusian Award for the show with their T-4 score of 64.4%. They were awarded a gorgeous plaque by the International Andalusian Breed Association and showed themselves off during a victory lap at the High Point award ceremony, turning peoples heads and putting a smile on their faces...

First Level - Test 1, 55.3% (Saturday) Sandi almost required the Heimlich maneuver as something got stuck in her throat during the ride...needless to say her focus was on surviving the test let alone riding it ;0) but no worries, we were able to fix it with a sip of water afterwards...

First Level - Test 1, 4th place with a 59% (Sunday) - they were able to up their percentage by 4 points over the course of the weekend. 60-s here they come.

We are super proud of the progress this pair is making at First Level. The judges absolutely adore Iggy and Peter is doing a great job showing off his fancy footwork :0). Once we get the canter work more solid, the scores will go up even more. Way to go. Keep up the nice work.

These two had a solid show after some time off and were obviously enjoying their time together :0)

Kristin decided to scratch her Sunday ride as she wanted to save Iceman's energy for the upcoming one week boot camp with German clinician, Karla Spiritus.

We are especially happy that Laurie & Livi joined us at the show. They almost did not because of a last minute stone bruise that happened during a training session on the day before the show. Needless to say, we knocked on a lot of wood and treated Livi's feet with "wonder poultice" and "magic fairy dust" that saved Iceman in Idaho and voila, Livi was back to soundness Thursday morning just in time... However, we decided to take it easy with him and Laurie showed him only once at Second Level - Test 1. However, she had a blast riding her boy in such an incredible venue and spending some quality time.

Siggi was very happy with the performance of this young athlete, who celebrated his First Level - Test 4 and FEI 5 year old debut at this show, resulting in solid scores and placing in the top three of every class he entered.

First Level - Test 4, 3rd place with 65.5% out of 16 contenders, right behind Santero, who placed 2nd in that class (the winning score was 67.3%)

FEI 5 year old Test, 2nd place with 73.2%, only surpassed by his "barn brother" Santero, who won the class with 75%.

Jesse showed Pat's 6 year old Oldenburg/Thoroughbred gelding, Willy, at Intro & Training Level, Test 2 and 4. Willy is known to be a bit spooky at times but Jesse worked very hard with him for the past three months and the dedicated work definitely paid off today.

Willy had an incredible learning curve & confidence boost during the day. He started with the Intro A test to get him used to a judges booth, which he found very scary at first but made up for it with a solid 2nd half, earning a 55.5%. A couple hours later it was time to ride the T-2 test, it went already much better and scored 60.36% and 5th place. During the judges lunch break, we used the opportunity to school Willy in the competition arena and get him used to the judges booth with the scary mock judges Kristin & Siggi. Willy decided it was not that scary after all and after the lunch break, Jesse & Willy rode their T-4 test and it went beautifully, earning them an incredible score of 70.8% and 2nd place!!! We are especially proud to announce that Willy earned 7+on gaits and Jesse got a 7 on the rider score. Way to go!!!

Siggi showed Sherrie's 6 year old Westfalian gelding Amaroux at First and Second Level. This was his very first time out in the show ring. The warm up was First Level - Test 4 and besides that Amaroux really wanted to jump the cute little white fencing surrounding the arena, he kept it together for the most part and scored 68.947% (2nd place) with 8 on gaits & rider. The next test was Second Level - Test 2. Ami & Siggi implemented the judges feedback from their first test and were able to up their score to 69.73%, earning them 1st place.

We could have not been happier with our two red-heads on their first outing. Well done!

The new boy in town has arrived. Susan's 7 year old Andalusian gelding, Hungaro. He arrived in good health Sunday night and seemed completely unimpressed by the long trip. Susan is super excited, gave him a bath, new braids and went tack & supply shopping. Let the journey begin...

Hungaro is such a cuddle bug and is making new friends (human & equine) right and left.

Last weekend was the Grand Prix & GP Special and this weekend another Grand Prix and the GP Freestyle at the Festival of Champions and the results are in. The U.S. will be represented in Hong Kong by:

You can see in the table below how much each of the tests counted toward the combined total:

Steffen Peters & Ravel after very strong performances over the past two weekends.

Entry #	Rider	Horse	Grand Prix - 35%	GP Special - 20%	Grand Prix - 35%	GP Freestyle - 10%	Combined Total
533	Peters, Steffen	Ravel	75.792%	75.240%	75.250%	79.500%	75.863%
530	McDonald, Debbie	Brentina	72.667%	74.120%	73.042%	78.750%	73.697%
528	King, Courtney	Harmony's Mythilus	70.208%	73.160%	75.208%	78.050%	73.333%
529	King, Courtney	Idocus	69.042%	70.200%	69.958%	75.400%	70.230%
534	Peters, Steffen	Lombardi 11	70.625%	67.280%	70.042%	73.350%	70.024%
532	Morse, Leslie	Kingston	65.458%	66.920%	70.333%	76.400%	68.551%
526	Blinks, Susan	Mark	64.333%	66.440%	70.417%	73.850%	67.835%
535	Wilcox, Lisa	Naomi	63.667%	65.760%	68.833%	67.800%	66.307%
536	Williams, George	Rocher	66.333%	65.040%	65.542%	69.450%	66.109%
527	Harrison-Naness, Kristina	Rociero XV	64.833%	66.000%	65.917%	67.700%	65.733%

and now after you pretended to be interested in the actual results...here is the story that you really came for :0)

Eurodressage reports the following:

Olympic riders Guenter Seidel and Robert Dover stripped to raise money to Help Send U.S. Dressage Team to the 2008 Olympics. The two former Olympians went bare chest to show off their Olympic rings tattoos and raised 80,000$ of a grand total of 200,000$ with their Go Go act. The 'A Salute to Hong Kong' fundraiser was held Saturday evening during the final weekend of the 2008 Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Festival of Champions.

"The two riders both have five Olympic rings tattooed on their bodies and in an effort to up the bids for a portrait session with photographer Elma Garcia, "auctioneer" Brian O'Connor told bidders if they offered enough cash, Seidel just might remove his shirt to show his tattoo," photographer Mary Phelps told Eurodressage. "Seidel responded that "no one over 40 should remove his shirt in public," at which point, fellow Olympian Robert Dover was called upon to show his tattoo causing Jane Clark to quip, "I'll pay $30,000 to see this." Dover responded that he'd take it off for $50,000 and that was all it took to set off a hilarious bidding war. A compromise was reached when Garcia offered to do two portrait sessions and when two bidders offered $40,000 a session for a total of $80,000, Seidel and Dover disrobed to wild cheers and a standing ovation for the two veteran Olympians who showed good sportsmanship and a whole lot more."

The Benefit Show at Whidbey Island Equestrian Center - half time results. Sophie and Siggi got up at 4.30am and went on a 2 hour daytrip to Coupeville in order to support this weekends show warriors: Sandi & Menco, Kristin & Iceman and Peter & Eiswein/Iggy.

The trip was well worth it, as the weather was gorgeous, Team Cavallis kicked bootie and we saw our friend Laudino, who lives at Whidbey Equestrian Center since March when his new mom Lorraine found him with us.

Big congratulations to Kristin & Sandi, who have qualified their ponies for the Region 6 USDF and NW Championships for Second and Training Level respectively. Kristin will now focus on getting Iceman's feet wet at Third Level and Sandi is going to work on First Level with Flamenco and maybe qualify her other pony, Drambuie...

Sandi & Flamenco won the T-2 class with a 67.8% and placed 3rd with a solid performance and 66% at T-4. Way to go :0)

Kristin & Iceman scored 63.8% in their 2-4 class and placed 2nd only to a drop dead gorgeous black Holsteiner mare (F.D.F Nestle Quick), that everybody drooled over...

Peter showed two horses at First Level, his gelding Iggy & his wife's mare Eiswein. He received two qualifying scores on Iggy at 1-1 and 1-3. He was on track with Eiswein as well, earning 6's & 7's for the majority of the test, before Eiswein caught sight of beloved nephew Iggy and her concentration was not the test any longer but on calling for Iggy instead. Well, tomorrow is another day.