The horses are doing much, much more than great, and they all seem extremely confident and happy with Kai and Miri’s riding style. I’ve been training intensively with all three horses everyday since I came, and they’re just amazing.
Especially Ziggy keeps impressing me day after day after day.

So much has happened!
Last week Carisma went show jumping a little bit indoor AND training in outdoor cross for the very first time since October – OCTOBER! Yayyy, she was so good. It was just a baby course, but whatever!
Yesterday she did show jumping outdoor, and she was incredibly good. Really good! Tomorrow she goes to “real” cross training in Warendorf, where the fences are bigger and more difficult.

Ajour has been doing some dressage training indoor and hacking around the area here in Waldbröl. It’s so beautiful, and the hacking area is fantastic. Ohh, and he met cows for the first time in his life ….. as they came galloping towards him when we walked by their field. He got .. let’s say … extremely scared. Today he went show jumping a little but outdoor, where we also have some cross fences. He did a couple of them, and he was brilliant. He really loves it, and he jumps amazing.
Though, once he jumped this white oxer with a very colourful plank underneath downhill – jumping from grass to sand – he jumped so, so big that he, when he straight away afterwards had to turn, had no balance and slipped around the corner. We fell – both of us! – and got EXTREMELY dirty. He was just super, super proud. Think he felt like a king or something. Anyway, I got right back on him and jumped a few fences afterwards – including this plastic water-thing with a nature-plank above. He didn’t care much about that, just jumped as good as always. Superstar!

ZIGGY …. is doing soooooo good. Right now I ride him on the hackamore in dressage everyday with help from Miri (Kai’s girlfriend – grand prix dressage rider!), but we just put on a bit too – no reins in yet though. I think after the cross training he’s going to on Thursday we’ll put some reins on and start riding him less on the hackamore and more on the regular bridon.
Today I jumped him for the very first time since my leg injury (third time since I got him in the beginning of March).
He was … sooooo … sooooo … great. Really good, incredibly good! He has now so much more energy and power that he can actually keep jumping as scopey as he wants without losing his hindlegs and having a pole down. He’s not looking at anything, really, he’s so honest and nice! The problem is a bit when he has to be controlled on a certain distance and he comes close. He’s not refusing, not ever! But that’s when he sometimes takes a pole. He did tripple combination uphill, tricky turns, and all that kind of stuff – and he just kept going. Ohh, I love him.
The feeling when jumping him today was so different from the two first times, really, but in a (very!!) good way. He was much more relaxed and comfortable. Also, he’s starting to have so much selfconfidence! It’s great to see. This so, so shy and nervous horse who just two months ago was too afraid to look out his window now does basically nothing but hangs around in his window. And he got so cheeky!! Normally my feeding barrels (Pavo SportsFit, Pavo SlobberMash and their supplements (NervControl and E’Lyte)) stand in front of his box because he behaves so nice … but now they can’t stand there anymore as he’s reaching out for them and – boom – feed everywhere! Silly horse ..

All in all … everything’s GREAT.
People here are so nice, friendly, happy, and helping – and we’ve so far had three barbeques already! Two in the evening and one for lunch (LUNCH!).
It’s so great. I’m so happy here!
Ohhh, and I right now live with two dressage riders! Really nice girls both of them.
Ah, ja, one more thing … we meet one hour later in stable, yay! I still wake up at 6 though, but that’s sort of awesome.. being able to feel completely awake ad ready to go, then check the clock, turn on the other side and sleep for one more hour. Happiness indeed!

First of all – my legs are FINE and all the horses are doing really GREAT.

Second of all – I’ve been to the doctor and hospital quite a lot of times now due to my back. Even, I was in for an MRI this Monday, and just now got out of the doc to get some conclusions.

Good news, bad news.
Good thing is that my back is now completely healthy if you look at my scanning. Really, the pictures can’t be any better, and the doctor said that they could be used for medical studies because they’re so good.
Objectively, my health is now no longer standing between me and the World Ranking List’s first place. This is great, really!

The bad thing is now that the doctors have absolutely no idea what causes the extreme pain I’m sometimes suffering from.

I will now (officially) skip all kinds of medication to keep my back pain down. None of it helps anyway.
This means that I’m – after 6 years of what’s nearly an addiction – drug free. Hallelujah!

Ooookay and to another quite dramatical change .. new team! I’m moving on Tuesday to Kai-Steffen Meier’s stable in Waldbröl, about one and a half hour south from here. Meier is also a German team rider, and also among Germany’s selection of riders with a possibility of going to the Olympics. Check it out HERE

I want to make it very clear to everyone that there has been no personal nor training-concerned complications leading to this choice. Dirk and I agreed that with his amount of horses and my amount of horses compared to hours in a day and hours spent on proper training and work – we would not be able to keep the deal on it’s best for both parts. It would simply be unrealistic.

Dirk immediately called Kai and gave me a huge helping hand getting this new opportunity (this world is all about relations, guys!), and I was not at any point rushed out of the stable. Kai and ai just made a deal so fast that – well – Tuesday it is! Dirk was also a bit surprised we found out something this fast, but I believe it’s for the better for both of us.

Also, Dirk offered to help me bring all my stuff – horses and everything – down, but that would be too much. He has really helped me a lot already, and I appreciate that a lot.

Ssssooooo! I guess that’s a sort of an update or!?
As I’m writing this very last bit, I’m in the taxi on my way home … he drives crazy and I’m mega nauseous, so bye!

Ziggy hacking for more than two hours, getting washed, and eating grass.. and sleeping.

Ajour grassing and running lose in lunging hall. Wild.

Today I so far only did Ziggy – on the outdoors with hackamore and afterwards hack. He was really, really good! Training his flying changes and improving so much already. He’s just a really good guy!

Carisma will go for a looooong hack today, and I don’t think much else. She hasn’t had any days off in a while, so she can have that today. Ajooour will probably go for (very) small hack and training on the outdoors.

Ajour was just soooo great, he is really unbelievable. I think finding a 4 yo as nice as him would be difficult! Honestly, he is so easy in all handling – I’m tacking him up and off in his stable, I can clean all four hooves from same side, I can jump on and off basically everywhere, and 9/10 times he stands completely still. Also, he is just so lovable in every way. He works not just good or great, but FANTASTIC under rider, and he loves talking so much that you can do pretty much everything to him – he doesn’t mind. You can leave his boxdoor wide open while grooming him or doong something else somewhere else – he’s just staying there looking around.

All this is probably more impressing when you know how scared and crazy he was when he first got on stable – before he went to the horse whisperer. If the box was just a tiny little open he’d try run out, he was restless and scared to death if a pad came anywhere nearer than 20 meters. In writing moment he’s standing licking and biting his pad. Stupid horse.

It’s not going to be any permanent thing at all; as I wrote it’ll only be a few times now and then if he works well with it.

Think he likes the fact that he can wear a bridle AND eat without being bothered by any stupid metal thing He eats a lot, my god, and he is now begging when we start feeding, urghhh, how long time did it take me to spoil yet another horse with perfect manners!

However, it’s great. We also started reducing the amount of hay for him as he is turning quite chubby now! Can you believe it? It’s fantastic. And he’s so, so happy now plus his fur is shiny and supersoft. Ziggyyyyyy is the best!

We go ride now, wuwu!

Second of all.. I’m riding again – for real! 3-4 horses a day; Carisma, Ajour, Ziggy and Cagancho who is Yoshi’s show jumping horse. It’s only until he comes back from Italy where he’s riding a CCI3* with Noony.

There’s not much to write about Karry and Ajour since they’re rolling pretty much the same drum. Karry is doing great and improving from each day that passes on, she gets more relaxed faster and .. yeah. She’s just doing really good. Ajour is basically superman – we went on his first hack alone because they did some testing of the watering-system in the riding hall, and I didn’t feel much for riding anyway due to the pain. Yeah… Really, I just tacked him up in his stable, took him out, looked into the riding hall, decided to go for a hack, took down the stirrups, got up, went for a hack alone. Daily rutine now. He’s awesome.

Ziggyyyyy though is a different story. You all know he is quite a project in many ways, but we are really starting to get extremely good along now. I’ve spent a whole lot of time just being with him while I wasn’t ready to ride – and I’ve spent hours sitting with his sleepy head in my arms because he was sleeping when I wanted to go ride. He’s adorable, very. It’s like he is so pure! It’s hard to describe, but let me put it up like this .. I love all my three horses extremely much, and to me they are all equally much angels… so to speak. But no matter how much I love them, I’m not turning blind. Carisma can – really! – be a bitch to other horses and.. just other animals. Ajour doesn’t get any kind of “no” (I think it’s because he has never learned to combine a high voice/clap/knock/whatever with anything bad. I mean – he has never actually been hit or something like that except for that one time with the evil farrier before he got on stable. So… what I’m trying to say is that he’s really not behaving very well! Playing with the water, making weird noices with everything in his stable, knocking the box door, and whatever when he’s bored or waiting to get food or hay. Badass.

Then Ziggy – he is different! Much. I have still not seen him being angry, pissy, moody… nothing but happy, patient, careful, and you name it. It’s incredible. I think I wrote it before – he is like a natural gentleman. Like Ajour is a natural non-behaving jackass – I don’t really think none of them are much affected by humans. But on the other hand – what do I know.

To the point! Ziggy is doing very good, and today he was absolutely amazing. Just riding around, smiling, and thinking “I don’t care if this is the 4th or 5th horse and my entire body is a burning hell of pain – this is worth every following liver and kidney-damaging painkiller!”
It’s not like this all the time – I must say that. Today was more than just a pleasure, and I really do believe this horse is going all the way, that’s for sure, but yesterday.. was not this pleasant. He is good no matter what – I know it, I see it, and I feel it, YES! But he has these moments where I’m just thinking “nooooooooo way”. For instance – he could barely canter three 20-meter volts in left canter because of the shoulders.

All horses have these days. First time I sat on Ajour was….. basically a nightmare. I was ready to put that horse up for sale immediatly, honestly. And now? Wouldn’t even sell for a million. He’s fantastic.
Carisma, well.. we have days like Ziggy’s yesterday almost everyday. In a way. It’s almost every time I start riding her – sometimes she’s really nice from beginning, but most likely the warm up is 10-30 minutes of “please, no”, “NO, NO, NO”, and “this will never work out”-thoughts. It’s like starting all over everyday – but what I need to keep in mind is the progress. Progress and improvement. When she reaches this point where she’s suffering, and relaxing – I don’t want to get off her. Ever! She’s a dream, and it feels like we could win the Olympics tomorrow. Honestly.

It’s the same with Ziggy. It will take time for him to permanently be that diamond he is, therefore right now it’s all about remembering days and moments like today. He was so, so, so great, and he has improved incredibly much already. Also – he is one of the good guys. For real. He wants to do this, he wants to work, wants to learn and get better. He’s not having bad moments because he wants to be bad. He’s just not strong enough to be good all the time – yet! But I can assure you he will be soon. Actually he’s getting kind of chubby now – we cut down his hay portions so he’s not getting too big! Haha, ironic – the good way!

Short story is that Ziggy is definitely staying here with me for some time – and I hope for a long time! Also, now that I’m just thinking again, he’s the first horse I’ve had that actually could behave! I think I’m the problem.. my horses are too spoiled.. I can’t spoil Ziggy, because he doesn’t like any of the things I’m giving him, haha. He is starting to get along with apples, but carrots, bananas, treats, sugar, bread… nooo thanks. SlobberMash, SportsFit, hay, and grass – definitely our favorites!

Most of all I’m using time bonding with Ziggy – this is really needed as he was so nervous and shy when he first got here. He is a cocmplete different horse now, it’s unbelievable. We didn’t exactly feel like lunging when we were all ready and set in the lunging hall, so I clicked off the pessoa lines and lunging rope so he could run lose. But what did he do? He stood still just staring at me with his head a bit down and his ears pricked. He is gorgeous. So for about 40 minutes we just walked around together talking a bit about this and that. The weather and so.

Good – I’m lunging all three horses everyday, walking down the road as good as I can with them and such stuff. I brush them for like 15-30 minutes at a time a looot of times during the day, as Dirk doesn’t want me to do anything until my leg is all alright again. Hmm. But well, the horses are doing extremely good – all three! I’ve also groomed them all a lot, so they all got new, fresh haircuts ;=) or.. Karry’s tiny little amount of mane and whatever the hair between her ears are called have not really been clipped… since it’s barely existing.. but they all look extremely good now!

Also, I’ve moved apartment again again again again, but this time I’m staying for a bit longer than 10 days! I’ve moved alone into my own apartment, signed by contract and everything. Weird, I’ve actually officially moved out now. Cool. Well, it’s a really nice and cosy apartment – just 900 meters from the stable in a real tidy and neat neighborhood!

I’ll post some more asap, right now I just need to sleep, god, I’m so tired!