Successful international show in Drachten!

Last Wednesday Marcel and Joyce left to the international show in Drachten in The Netherlands. Joyce competed Showboy at small tour level and Marcel's Spanish student Lucia Gallardo competed at Grand Prix level aboard her Symphonie. At Junior level Joyce's student Joelle Peters showed her Dacar's Dream.

The two stallions Firestone and Felini already were with them as well as from Drachten the Beukenvallei team went directly to Zuidbroek in the north of Holland to compete at the stallion show on Monday.

On Thursday the horses all passed the vet check without any problems. On Friday the first tests were on the program.

Joelle Peters did a very good job. This was her first international indoor show. Unfortunately Dacar spooked once but Joelle was quickly in control again. 

Than it was up to Joyce and Showboy. Showboy was super but the pair got a big mistake in the tempi changes every four strides. Without any reason except for a miscommunication and normally this exercise is very good. Fortunately the judges could give eighths for the tempi changes every three strides.  In this big field the pair finished sixth and qualified for the freestyle on Saturday evening!

Very late in the evening, around 10 PM, Lucia and Symphonie had to do their Grand Prix test. Well, it certainly was too late as Lucia was not so alert, ha ha! Symphonie was super, the best so far but in the canter zig zag Lucia made five strides instead of six and in the tempi changes every two strides she made seven instead of nine en in the tempi changes every strides she made 13 changes instead of 15! O, O, tooooo bad.... They still had almost 65% and the pair qualified for the kur on Sunday.

On Saturday Joelle had to ride the individual Junior test and Joyce competed Showie in the kur. Joelle's test was very good and she got over 66%. Very good for the first time! Showboy again was super and the score went up to almost 73% which made Joyce smile. The pair finished fourth!

On Sunday it was Joelle's turn again and also Lucia had to ride her freestyle. Joelle showed progression every day and the kur was very good. The judges gave her almost 69%. Symphonie panicked a little bit while entering the arena because there was a lot of noise around the judges tables. Because of this tension Lucia couldn't ride like usual but she handled it very well and she scored almost 67% so we were very satisfied.

Marcel and Joyce and the rest of the team look back to a successful and nice show in Drachten.

Showboy (pictured in Drachten) did a super job and in the near future he will make his Intermediare 2 début.

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