Wandering around the sun drenched event at Le Pin today you could almost be forgiven for thinking that you had strolled into a holiday camp with a few horses around. Although it’s quiet around the dressage arenas where the CIC 1* and CICP 1* competitors are finishing their dressage phase today, everywhere else the music is playing through the loudspeakers (love the music they play here), the grooms are in shorts or less, the spectators are lazing around and we even caught the usually active Shane Rose chilling out in the shade.
Shane, Niki and Olivia chill out watching the 1* dressage
We caught up with Shane and Virgil to find out a bit more about their trip over here
Shane is not the only Aussie here this weekend – Alex Townsend of Wallaby Hill has brought Bendigo and Parodie across the Channel as a part of her international season.
The beautiful Bendigo says hello
The CIC 3* dressage starts tomorrow at 8:30am with Mark Todd first to go on a recently acquired ride, Oloa and has his second ride on Leonidas in the afternoon. Shane also rides in the afternoon while Alex has Parodie at 8:58 and Bendigo at 4:30pm – as the forecast is for another 28 degree day these Aussies are hopefully going to feel at home in the heat tomorrow. Luckily it’s set to cool down a bit for show jumping day on Saturday and the cross country on Sunday
The pony dressage stars L-R Annie Kamieth, Leoni Leuwer and Tori Smith
In the CIC P1* Germany’s 14 year old Annie Kamieth leads the field on her 9 year old pony Mr Harvey on a score of 38.6 and is followed by her compatriot, 16 year old Leoni Leuwer riding Camissa Nera. Great Britain’s Victoria Smith (known as Tori) is in third place riding Nutkin and was very happy with her test, saying that Nutkin was “nice and relaxed, he really enjoyed himself”. Although this is her first time competing here, Tori was here last year helping the well-known British rider Laura Collett and will be moving up to the bigger horses herself soon as, at 16 years old, she will be moving out of pony competition.
