For dinner on my birthday, we ate at Pluckers, the small restaurant owned by the Warsteiner Brewery that is connected to the indoor ring at the barn. The food is delicious, and it is a really charming place with a lot of rustic wooden furnishings. My parents sent me a new camera from home last week, so I will be able to put up pictures soon! Warstein actually doesn't have a store that sells electronics. Where is Wal-Mart when I need it?!
On Saturday, Lena and I went to watch the show in Dortmund in the afternoon. We got up early and finished in the barn by 12:30, then headed off to the show with Opa. I saw a few of my British friends! It was great to see familiar faces and talk to people who speak fluent English for a little while. I've never fully appreciated how much effort it takes to communicate in a place where English is not the primary language! Dortmund was a great city horse show, similar to the Syracuse Sporthorse Tournament in New York. All the stabling, the schooling area, and the ring were erected inside recreational buildings in the city of Dortmund. The show ring is used as a hockey arena at other times of the year! Upon arriving at the show, Lena and I went to two German Junior/Young Rider meetings about the upcoming show year. I had trouble deciding whether the meetings were more or less boring for me because I couldn't understand what the officials were actually sayings. The whole ordeal took about 2 1/2 hours and by the end of it, I thought I was going to collapse from boredom! I spent the majority of one of the meetings reading TextsFromLastNight on my phone. In the other one, however, I was sitting very near the front and felt it would be conspicuous and rude to stare at my phone for an hour. Although I learned absolutely nothing from these meetings, I did get to meet several officials from the German Equestrian Federation, so I think sitting through them was worthwhile!
After Lena and I escaped from the all the droning, we watched the Under-25 Rider Classic. The jumps ranged from meter 1.40 to 1.45, and the course was very connected. It started with a 1.40 oxer close off the corner; bending eight strides to a liver pool vertical; a wide turn to a vertical with a forward five or curving six strides to an oxer-vertical two stride in-and-out; a triple bar tight off the corner with five strides to a double vertical one stride in-and-out; then a long bending line to a low, wide oxer; a vertical at the end of the ring; another vertical with five strides to a big oxer up the middle of the ring; and, finally, an oxer-vertical one stride right by the rail. A lot of horses and riders had trouble in the last in-and-out! Out of more than thirty horse/rider combinations, only two successfully jumped the first round clear. Both were riders from Germany who I didn't know. The first rider went fast but had two rails down in the jump off. The second one cruised slowly and had one rail but still finished on top! It was really interesting to see a big indoor class for riders under 25 in Germany, and compare it to the High Junior/Amateur jumper division in the United States. I thought this class was comparable to the High division at the Syracuse Sporthorse Tournament. It was difficult and connected, and some of the jumps were a big meter 1.40 while others were 1.45. Not all of the oxers were wide, but a few of them definitely required the scope of a meter 1.50 horse. I was surprised there was no triple combination, but the ring was very small! All in all, the show in Dortmund was great and I would love to compete there sometime.
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