So much going on

Thanks to everyone for you comments and best wishes!
There is so much to talk about, I am bursting to bring up the discussions that are close to me now and there are so many!
Listen to this one - Donoso will NOT have a protocol from the judges, no scores, no points, he will be one of the 39 best stallions but that's as accurate as it gets. The judges only marks and give a protocol to the 15 qualified horses and as we were thrown out we are totally without any evaluation whatsoever. I went down to the office with Javier and asked them how this could possibly be, the best judges and the best horses and there is NO evaluation? I said I was totally disillusioned, we make much effort to prepare, bring and pay for the horses to compete - we put our horses there in front of the elite judges and we want them to say; THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL HEAD or THIS IS A BAD LEG etc, and in the most prestigeous competition they don't even take the trouble and time to look properly at our horses? We all go to get a evaluation for ourselves and for the horse, for our breeding, for our understanding and education and all I was shown was that 1 out of the 3 judges wanted Donoso to qualify. I want a serious and professional judge to mark my horse, not one that say - IN or OUT without having visible criterias that supports his decision. In this way noone can question the results, the judges don't have to justify any markings and this is very comfortable. For them.
Photos from today.

Then we saw the Functionality. I am going for one here too. The overall quality of the horses and the quality of the performances were totally disturbing. To see horses 7 years and older, running, some bolting, most with their heads beind the vertical with double bridles and the rider going up and down like on a 3 year old horse (prancing?). I am sorry but this is not good enough. At least ride the horse before the competiton, present him decently. And if he is going to be a Spanish Champion - and the PRE a horse for riding - he has to be able to do something more than circles in trot and canter. Someone wise and influential has to do something here because most of the horses presented were only good for driving and would never be able to do anything in the dressage arena. No hindlegs underneath, no pushing through the topline, no extention in trot and lots of short and high kneeaction that did not cover any ground.
But hey - it is not all doom and gloom! No, no we are enjoying ourselves as never before and today I was riding in the warm up for the Grand Prix, getting inspiration, seeing good moving horses, good riders and havíng professional opinions about my horse and my riding. Juan Matute, Rafael Soto, Juan Antonio Jimenez were there. There are many wonderful people that actually takes the trouble to come up to us to tell us how impressed they are by Donoso, it makes me very happy and I appreciate it alot. One breeder wanted me to ride his horse tomorrow, it is a horse we have for sale, a relative to Donoso, he is a fantastic horse and I am very much looking forward to this tomorrow!

THE DAY

They were 39 and Donoso was last one out, totally cruel to our nerves! But how exciting, loved every minute of it and sucked it in. I had studied previous best results of each one of them and comparing these to Donut's scores he was 14 in morfology and 11 in movements! These are the 39 best PRE stallions! A very glamourous row of horses.
In the trot he tucked in the hindlegs and pushed through a fab trot-lonrun without missing rhytm once, so beautiful and ahhh so exciting! Very few managed to do the longrun in one go, fantastic! There will be a video of that. The horses that qualified was the usual ones that has 'been there done that and got the SICAB t-shirt', I loved especially 2 of them, both of them definitely worthy to have the title 'Champion of Spain'. Judges favoured the big, heavy type, the typical horse for carriage driving, Donoso is the athletic type and he was definitely the most elegant one, what a pity I did not get to ride the test, he would have given them a hard time!

Yesterday - time flies!

Tony practicing with Donut

Donut & small people!

Caroline & Therese - the perfect grooms with handbags that quickly understood the job was to keep track of me and my things.

Yesterdays training

Happy in Sevilla!

A perfect day, a perfect place, a perfect atmosphere, perfect floor, perfect temperature, perfect company, and the PERFECT horse - just look at him! He is going for it!

Follow us in SICAB here!

He is tuned in turned on, we have only had one week but it will be enough, I have been riding for king and country! We will post photos and give you the inside SICAB info during the week. This is the World Championships for the Pura Raza Española and not only the best horses from Spain participate but also the ones from the rest of the world, it is a international competition and it is big! Logically the spanish champion will be a stallion from a spanish studfarm and not one from a foreign studfarm, we are well aware we will not win, but for us it is important to participate and be judged in Spain. And if they only they let me ride the king of Sweden will shine them all out!

Mañana is finally here

WE ARE IN! On thursday 26th Donoso VII will represent Sweden in the spanish PRE championships SICAB in Sevilla with all the hotshots!
Here he is listed!

Schedule for competitors;
Wednesday 10.30 Group 10 - stallions 5 & 6 years old, 28 participants
Wednesday 16.30 Group 8 - stallions 4 years old, 32 participants

Thursday 10.00 am; Group 12 - stallions 7 years and older ; Donoso's group - 39 big boys.
15 from each group will be selected to do the 'Functionalidad', the ridden test.
These 45 will be competing for the Champion Title/s.

Please cross your fingers for him, we look forward to seeing you all there!
You can also follow on webtv here

TOMORROW...

...We WILL know if 'Donoso' is going to represent Sweden or not. Yesterday we were biting our nails, all gone. We did decide yes and sent off the inscription and the board comittee will let us know, tomorrow, puh. We realize we are a 'little' late, (so nothing new there) but how can they refuse when we came all the way from Sweden?!