Home

We are back home and everything became normal again. Sini got some easier time now, I still ride him 6 times a week but we go mostly hacking and do only light work. I'm working like usual but I got only 9 or 10 horses to ride. So it's not too stressful at the moment. I have one small show coming on 1st of September. I will ride Santos and Fiaro Lacendos in one s-class.

Photos - Ferry

Fotos from the Olympics - vet check

Travelling home

We left from the show ground after the freestyle on Thursday. We were brought to Kyra where my lorry were standing during the Olympics. We unload our staff and load them into my lorry. We wanted to leave early on Friday morning so we could drive before the morning traffic past London to the ferry. We left from Kyra at 5:00 am. and drove to Dover to the ferry. There were first a problem with our papers and it took us longer to get in to the ferry. It was 9:25 am when we finally got in to our ferry. We arrived in Caleis, France, around 11:00 and started our drive to Germany. We drove first to Retie in Belgium where we took Spirit out for a couple of hours and put him into a stall. He started to drink immediately. We let him walk and eat some gras before we continued driving. From Retie we still drove 4 hours until we reached home. Spirit was happy when he finally got out from the lorry and realised that we came home again. I think we all were happy to be home again and to be able to sleep in our own bed! I want to say thank you to my sponsor Sinituote Oy, Monica and Ilkka Brotherus, from the support they have given me and who made this all possible! I also want to thank my family and my boyfriend Thomas who always have been there for me. A BIG THANK YOU to my team: Marieke Oertel, Hubertus Schmidt, Tuula Pursiainen and Riitta Holopainen. And thank you all who kept the fingers crossed and cheered up for me!

Semifinals

I'm very happy about Tuesday. The all day was just wonderful. I got to wake up early that I could train Spirit once before the competition. He went really well! So I felt confident and relaxed before we started the warm up for our test. Spirit was doing well hole time and I had a good feeling to ride in to the arena. Through the hole test I was able to ride Spirit like in the training and now also the tempis were without mistakes. We got so far our best score from the GPS 71,889% and we were all very happy about that. Unfortunately it was not quite enough for the freestyle but anyway I'm very pleased about my first Olympic games and how they went for me. This was an amazing experience, my dream coming true and now I have to start dreaming of something new! :)

Weekend

Saturday and Sunday we had some time to see the city and do some shopping. I also invited my boyfriend and my parents to the olympic village to see who the life there is. It was nice to send some time together. I also rode Spirit in the morning and he still feels fresh and not tired at all. Tomorrow I'm going to take Spirit out two times just like on Tuesday when the test ist.

Gran Prix the second day

It was exciting for me up to the end. I had to wait the final results to see if I qualified or not. And I did! I can ride the Gran Prix special on Tuesday and I'm more than happy! :) On Friday I just jogged with Spirit and went for hacking so he could have a little time of. Today we start our training again. I have go trough my test with Hubertus just to see what the judges said and where we have to work more. For sure I need to work on the serial changes!

Gran Prix

Wow how amazing it was! Even if we got some mistakes in one and two tempis, I'm happy how Spirit was inside the arena. We had a good warm up and I tried to keep him focused on me and not on the audience and it worked! I'm really happy about the trot and passage tour and also the sicsac in canter and the pirouettes were good for us. The score 70,395% could have been better but with the mistakes I'm still happy that we got over 70%. Now we just need to hope that if that it is enough for the special.

The last day before the competition

Today we got to train on the main arena. We had specific times for each country and all the individuals were put together so they had groups of 4 riders. Each group had 30 minutes to ride inside the arena. First I made a warm up outside and then some movements. When our time came I concentrated to keep Spirit focused on me and work. I'm happy about the result: I could end and leave the arena when my horse was quiet and relaxed. I wanted to give him nice a nice end and good memory.
Tomorrow my starting time will be 14:01 GBT as a 18th horse.