Today, the horses are enjoying a well deserved day off, so I was thinking about maybe driving to a few tack shops, seeing the countryside, testing my credit cards durability… but, as soon as I walked into the barn, one of the Bartels up and coming young horses was in the cross ties being braided. Hmmmm what have we here? Well, it turns out that the very handsome Handretti had qualified to compete at the Dutch National Championships in the ZZ Light under Lars op’t Hoog and tonight is the Kur! I do love a good tack shopping trip, but this was an experience that I wasn’t going to miss! The competition was being held in Ermelo at the KNHS Center, which was about a two hours drive north, so I recruited a few traveling pals to make it an official road trip. I made some great friends during this trip, two of which are Mohamed, a dressage rider from the United Arab Emirates currently training at the Bartels with the goal of qualifying for the 2022 Asain Games and Dasha, a young rider from Russia, also training with the Bartels. It was great getting to know both of them while I was in the Netherlands and they also happened to make perfect road trip partners, so we all loaded up and headed towards Ermelo. The grounds are quite large and there were competition arenas everywhere. I counted eleven dressage rings plus all of the warm-up arenas. There were beautiful horses everywhere I looked! This championship was for medium level, between Second Level and Fourth Level, and it was well organized keeping horses of similar levels together in certain areas. Lars and Handretti were competing in the ZZ Light, which is comparable to Fourth Level Test 1 in the US. We were lucky to have seats right in between the warm-up arena and the arena that the musical freestyles were being held. There was a wide variety of music and choreography used, so each freestyle was unique and exciting to watch. My particular favorite was a big, elastic chestnut ridden to a dance remix of a current radio hit that just worked. He was big and powerful and the music complimented him perfectly. I liked the ride so much, that I lost a few fries during my applause and I didn’t even care. THAT is how good the ride was…. Lars music was really cool. Haunting and deep and it really brought you in. His ride had really great moment, but unfortunately a few small mistakes prevented them from winning this class. They scored over 71% placing fourth, which is so exciting for such a young horse. It will be interesting to see where he goes in the future. Once the competition was finished, we headed towards the vendors. Is it even a real horse show if you aren’t tempted to buy something shiny? Well there was no risk of that happening on this day, because there were sniny things everywhere! It was overwhelming. There were so many tents and each tent was chock full of so many beautiful things. I recently lost my favorite chin pad, so that was my first target. I found a big squishy one for only 12€, plus a cool riding shirt, so I got out without doing too much damage to Nate’s retirement fund, which is a win in my book. I also got to meet some of Custom Saddlery’s European reps and check out their demo saddles. You think people are getting a little “loud” with their colors and bling here in the US, well some of the saddles here were way over the top! From the back of the cantle being completely encrusted with diamonds to crocodile print knee blocks and in so many different colors and textures. There were all so beautiful to look at and the craftsmanship was amazing, but nothing beats brown buffalo leather in my humble opinion. Although, Lars class was finished, there were still other levels still in the midst of their competition. It was interesting to see the layout of vendors and competition arenas here compared to how they are typically set up in the US. This line of vendor tents was only about thirty feet behind the judges boxes of some of the arenas holding championship classes. Can you imagine riding down centerline, while someone is holding up a shiny red jacket to see how it fits directly behind C? I know a few horses and riders who would not be fully concentrated in these conditions, but instead of being in awe of the differences between the way that I am used to showing and what I watched today, I am definitely going to use it as motivation for making sure that all of my horses are well rounded enough to go down centerline with food truck parked near H and not come out needing medical attention. #goals I cannot decide if I like exploring with Dutch locals or other nonnatives better. I love how much locals know about the food, different parts of the country and traditions, but there is a different feeling when traveling with other people who are also excited over every little dutch thing you find. For example, we were making our way over to look at the final results from the days rides and found a small pancake stand… We all got super excited! Pancakes are pancakes, right? Wrong! These pancakes are tiny little pancakes served with chocolate sauce across from the results booth at a horse show in the Netherlands. Completely different. What did they taste like, you ask? Pancakes, but I didn’t feel like I needed a nap or a shower after these pancakes, like I do at the iHop, I felt motivated to go ride tomorrow and how often can you say that about regular old pancakes? After investigating the entire show grounds (including taking a stroll though the parking lots to look at pretty horse trailers), exploring every vendors tent and sampling the local snacks, we headed home. We had been on the road for about fifteen minutes, when we passed a tiny little ice cream truck that was parked along the side of the road. We had already passed it, but as soon as we all realized what it was, a U turn quickly followed and we gave that man our business! This is when I knew that I had chosen great traveling buddies. This guy was a hoot! None of us speak Dutch, so as soon as we walked up, I asked if he spoke English and he said in a perfect American accent, “Do you want modern english or…” then he switched over to a British accent, “…old English?” Haha! Not only was he very entertaining, but his homemade ice cream was perfect. I had two scoops of Stracciatella with double whipped cream on top and fought falling asleep the entire ride home. It was the perfect way to end a really great day.
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11/29/2023 01:43:19 pm
Procedures to be Performed by Aesthetic Doctors
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