World Cup Qualifier in Belgium

Memorial Eric Wauters runs on its 27th year from 26 to 30 December 2007. A big horsy gathering for lord and farmer has during a quarter of a century developed into one of the absolute leading equestrian events in Europe. We welcome the year 2007 last World Cup qualifying round! 
Both Noora and Mikael participates in Mechelen, Noora in the CSI3* category, Mikael in the World Cup. 

Mechelen: read our report.

Reflections on the Mechelen show

The plan for Mechelen was to give Vanity routine, try out what Nandele would do under a new rider and, of course, to participate in the main event, the Mechelen World Cup with Isaac du Jonquet.

The main event went well and Mikael told he got the gelding to jump really well on Sunday. It was a real pity that they erred on the very last fence, which was a single, not very difficult vertical, a shortish seven strides out from the previous. Mikael told he opted to ride the distance with six strides, a usually good solution with this big cantering horse. All went well and they reached the fence at a good distance, but unluckily Isaac simply made a mistake with the frontend, despite clearing all the difficult parts of this very big course without any problems. With only 5 clear rounds in the class this unnecessary knockdown was a real pity, and the rider was understandably very disappointed freshly after their round.

Regarding the recently purchased Nandele Mikael told their very first round went quite ok. But the mare was clearly frightened and was running a lot, resulting in a bad approach for a combination, where Mikael opted for a volt instead of possibly freighting the mare even more. It was a good call and Mikael felt they had a good first international experience. The second class was also 1m40 on paper, but it was a very big course, not perhaps GP-level, but anyhow way bigger than the first test. Mikael told he tried to prepare the mare in the warm-up, with jumping some bigger fences. Once out on the course the mare did some huge jumps and was constantly over-jumping a lot. Approaching a vertical-vertical combination the mare first stared on the boxes under the verticals, but was signaling willingness to jump them until chickening on the very last moment, with Mikael falling of the saddle. Mikael jumped a fence after the hick-up and all seemed ok, but clearly, the mare would need a lot of work both with its physique and confidence. Mikael guessed the mare was possibly also a bit sore from the changes in the riding style that a new rider undoubtly must have meant. All in all Nandele seemed like horse with plenty of possibilities.

For Noora the Mechelen week was more of a outing for her horses. Competing in Mechelen at tree-star level, Noora told her goals were more in the upcoming shows in January and, honestly, she was also waiting very much for their upcoming annual vacation directly after this show.

From Mechelen Noora and Mikael drove directly to airport and flew down to Dubai, where a very well-earned week off from both horses, and in Mikael's case also cars were about to start. Both Mikael and Noora sent also their very best regards and wanted to wish everyone a really successful New Year 2008!

Mikko's and Noora's results:

Results Summary

Official website:

Mechelen CSI-W

Results LIVE:

Sports Computer Graphics

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