Aachen CHIO, Dressage un Ltd, Unlimited Dressage

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CHIO Aachen
July 11 - 16, 2000

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Grand Prix Notes
Friday, July 14 - Part 1
Includes brief interview with Alexandra Simons de Ridder

In the press area, we had a television set that instantly posted the judges marks for the individual movements. We were not able to get a printout but managed to jot down some of the marks.

Christine Stueckelberger (Switzerland) on Allga Bolino, a 14 year old, gorgeous copper chestnut Hanoverian gelding, was a bit uneven in half pass but followed with a quite nice reinback. The next trot half pass was toward us, so we couldn’t see the unevenness. The extended trot needs more forward. The walk was almost lateral at first. He cantered a step before passage transition, the piaffe moved forward a bit too much, the second piaffe was better. The canter needs more energy, more foreword. Nice canter half pass. The two tempis are good, the one tempis are quite nice. The canter is sometimes four beat. Allga 331, 312, 330, 324, 306, 64.12

Lisa Wilcox, USA on Rhodiamant, a dark brown ten year old Oldenburg stallion by Rubenstein. What a lovely picture this is, a very nice rider on an elegant horse with stallion presence. This pair started showing Grand Prix just this year and with a little more experience they could be consistently scoring in the 70s. Judges gave them a 7 on the collected walk, 6-8 on reinback, 8 on the transitions from collected walk to piaffe and from piaffe to passage but only a 5 on the first passage, 7 on the second. The collected canter was scored an 8. The canter pirouettes hop behind instead of keeping steady canter rhythm and only scored 6s, but both one and two tempis scored 7s in spite of starting to get a bit tense in the 2s but Lisa rode him through it without a mistake. Lovely rider on the ones, very sensitive. Rohdiamant has an awesome extended trot which the judges rewarded with 8s. The final piaffe on centerline scored an 8 and an 8 on the final passage.

Collective marks: 8777, 7768, 8767, 8778, 7767

334, 338, 342, 331, 352, 67.88, 14^th.

Antoino Cid, Spain, on Mango, a seven year old, dappled grey with dark grey roached mane, Spanish stallion. We didn’t check the age of this young impressive stallion with stallion presence until after the test and then we were very much impressed with the superb job this seven year old youngster did in the Grand Prix.

Mango has an impressive extended trot. His flying change was good, but doesn’t have reach in canter. A very correct walk, pirouette a bit too big behind, the second walk pirouette got stuck behind Stallion presence he has, at start of half pass loudly let the crowd know "I’m here".The reinback was a bit erratic, the half pass nice. His extended trot is lovely. He really shines in passage, knees come up under his chin`but is not as impressive in the piaffe. The canter is choppy, not flowing. He needed 8 strides to make the first canter pirouette (5-6 strides are recommended), but only six strides on the second pirouette. He had a mistake in the twos, showed resistance to the leg on the twos by kicking on the tempis, when touched with spur which the rider could correct. For a seven year old, this was superb.

316, 292, 302, 305, 317, 61.28%

Emma Hindle, Great Britain on Wie Weltmeyer, by Weltmeyer, a ten year old chestnut gelding. This pair received some 7s including the half pass and even an 8 on the medium and collected canter but had some major problem areas including no score on the piaffe – reinbacked instead and no score on the canter pirouette to the right. The extended canter and the changes brought 7s as did the extended trot.

Collected Marks: 8656, 6657, 7657, 7657, 7657
61.60%, 35th

Cesar, ten year old, brown Swedish warmblood gelding by Cortez Tinne Vilhelmson for Sweden. With scores ranging from 4 to 8 on the entry halt, this test continued to have a wide range of scores with some lovely moments and some major mistakes. Trot half pass 7s, collected walk 7s and 8s, but only 5s on the piaffe. Canter pirouette to the left, 7s and even an 8 on the pirouette to the right. Eights on the one tempis, 7s on the twos. This is still a young pair with room for improvement.

Collective: 6778,7767,7767,6677, 7667

65.52%, 26^th

Interview with Alexandra Simons de Ridder (German first team rider of Chacomo). Alexandra is concerned about the team, and glad both she and Isabell did so well in Thursday’s first half of the Grand Prix. Why didn’t Holland come?
Fourteen days ago the Dutch had their national championship and they didn’t want to risk that something would happen to the horses.

What is it like to ride at Aachen?

I was surprised at how good the ground felt in spite of the water. (It rained every day for two weeks before Aachen and every day during CHIO). It is a real pleasure to ride into this beautiful stadium as a rider and as a Aachenbred. (Aachen is Alexandra’s hometown).

Ulla Salzgeber (Germany) on Rusty, 12 year old chestnut gelding whose heritage was just discovered this year to be Latvian. (See the FEI press release). And the rain moves in. It had been sunny until the start of this ride. Rusty moved on the halt and then spooked at H at end of canter when the wind came up and was blowing the flowers in the corner by the scoreboard. Ulla quickly recovered and continued with a lovely ride. One 9 and 4 eights on the extended trot, two 9s on the collected walk but only 6s on the piaffe. Transitions into piaffe and passage very nice and earned an average 8 with a 9 and the passage earned 9s. Now it is only lightly raining – not pouring.

Ulla was very clever, she took him back just before the extended canter so he was collected, and when she let him out it was very expressive and deserved the 8s. Rusty almost needs more than the whole diagonal to do his 9 lovely two tempis which earned 8s. We became used to almost perfection from the German first team including 9s on final halt

Collective-8978,7878,8878,8878,8879

374 371 368 364 386 74.526, tied for second with Chacomo

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