Barcelona Dressage Tour: Beukenvallei's Ubique

After a competition break of over two years I showed Beukenvallei's Ubique again at Grand Prix level a few weeks ago. That went really well and I got the score I needed to compete international. So we decided to take him to Barcelona. We knew this international show came a bit too early as Ubique is very hot and we need a few outdoor shows to get rid of the tension. 

The first Grand Prix test went pretty well. We had a few big mistakes and that cost a lot of points but he felt good. We came fifth and we qualified for the freestyle kur on Saturday evening. 

In this kur Ubique did a super job. Untill the walk... Ubique refused to walk. He was so hot and I couldn´t show collected or extended walk. These exercises count two times and I got two´s for it so I lost many many points here.

It might sound stupid but the rest was so good that I was happy anyway! The result proved the rest was good indeed as we came fifth and scored 69%. 

In the second week the Grand Prix was much better but still we had some stupid mistakes. We didn´t expect only 64% and many others expected a higher score as well but many small mistakes costs a lot of points of course. We finished 13th and we qualified for the kur (the best 15). 

On Saturday evening it was pretty exciting to ride the kur: it was dark and there was artificial light and an enormous amount of public. All horses were tensed. Ubique was like a bomb. While entering the ring the music box made a strange noise and in the half pass in trot he was in canter. Half way my test one of the lights in the corner broke down and we had to ride in this dark corner. So we had high lights but we also had mistakes caused by tension. 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my ride and I was satisfied. I know this show would be a little too much for him after not competing for so long and this was the first outdoor show again. But we gained experience! Now we need to get the rhythm and we will be allright. He is my top horse! We finished 12th in the kur with a score of almost 66%.

Greetings, 

Joyce

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