Palm Trees and Ocean Air

Wow sorry, been a little neglectful with the blog!

I've decided I want to move to Florida!  I know what you're thinking, "yeah, yeah, you and everyone else girl", but let's think about this for a minute...

1) Gorgeous weather 90% of the time, who wouldn't love that right? AND
2) Dressage HEAVEN!  Some of the best horse shows, clincs, etc., in the world are held in Florida.

For example, this week (starting January 26th) begins the 2012 World Dressage Masters, yet another 2012 World Cup and Olympic Qualifier and North America's only World Dressage Masters CDI5*.  I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to have the chance to go to something like that since Missouri isn't exactly known for dressage shows what so ever.  Let's face it, I live in the world of cowboys and rodeos... no Grand Prix or World Qualifiers in my future if I stay around here.

At the WDM, Totilas is expecting to be showing with his current rider, Matthias Alexander Rath, after their spectacular showing in Aachens in July and the German team silver medal at the European Championships, I'm sure this duo will be a highly anticipated attraction to all those in attendance.  I love Totilas, he is an amazing athlete, but with Steffen Peters competing on Ravel again to defend his 2011 championship and score of 80.87% in the Grand Prix, and the 2011 European Dressage Championship gold medal winning team from Great Britain (Charlotte Dujardin and Carl Hester, I feel like this championship is going to be a bit of a thriller for those fans of Totilas during his only public appearance while in North America.  Personally, I'm hoping Steffen and Ravel can repeat their amazing performance from last year.  This pair also won the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Freestyle at the 2010 WDM in Palm Beach.

I couldn't find a video of the actual CDI5* Grand Prix test from 2011 of Steffen and Ravel but I did find their CDI5* Grand Prix Freestyle which won them a score of 84.53% and the Grand Prix Freestyle division as well.

Virtual Reality?

Here's an interesting little thing I came across on Facebook this morning thanks to The Chronicle of the Horse.  Apparently you no longer have to even leave the comfort of your own facilities to enter a horse show.


HorseShow.com has now made it where all you have to do is enter your information, video yourself and your horse performing say the movements of a First Level dressage test, upload it and voila, instant show entry.  You can compete and win prizes including money and ribbons.  One show in particular, the Fall Harvest Dressage Festival gives you 21+ days to enter at this point (Entries actually opened November 7th), the classes are judged from December 31st until January 9th and the results are posted on the 9th.  1st place wins $250, 2nd wins $100, and 3rd place wins $50, plus the classes only cost $15 to enter!  All the classes are still judged by legitimate USEF judges by USEF standards.  Generally you can wear whatever you want, with the exception of a helmet which is required, but if you want to have a chance to win the money obviously you would treat it the same as any other horse show.


Some of the advantages to showing like this is obviously that it is CHEAP and you can enter over and over again without having to worry about transportation costs, stalling fees, office fees, etc.  You can compete against all kinds of people all over the world.  The ribbons and trophies are virtual but the money is for real and you can also win other things depending on the shows you are entering (I wonder if they are going to give away saddles???).  You still get the judging cards like you do from all the classes (even the ones that are not dressage shows) with all the judges comments which could greatly help with training and learning in general. 


So here's my question?  What do you guys think about this??  Do you think this is going to become the future of horse shows?  At some point are we all just going to get so paranoid (from the scare of Equine Herpes earlier this year) and are things going to be so expensive we can't afford to or want to travel anymore?