Dressage-News

GUDME, Denmark, July 21–The Danish dressage championships from which will be selected the team for the European Championships will be held this weekend with Leonberg, ridden by U.S.-based Mikala Gundersen, back on form.

Twenty-seven horses are entered in the Grand Prix championship which is being used to select the four-member team for the European Championships at Windsor late next month. The Grand Prix Special will be held Saturday and the Musical Freestyle on Sunday.

After an outstanding performance at the Rotterdam CHIO in The Netherlands last month, the stallion owned by Horses Unlimited of Albuquerque, New Mexico, developed a slight colic that, coupled with unusually warm weather, produced results that disappointed Mikala at the Aachen CHIO in Germany, the world’s premier horse show.

“I was quite frustrated in Aachen,” she told dressage-news.com. “You work all your life to go, and then the horse gets sick! It was hard not to go in the ring at that point because he felt OK in the warm up both days ( just a little tired).

“I was hoping he would get exited about going in the ring and forget about being tired. Stallions can easily fool you. too!!

“Anyway later we realized that his colic had been developing slowly over maybe a week or two, and he just got more and more uncomfortable during the warmer weather In Aachen. They are still live animals and no matter how hard we try to do everything
correct we can’t always do it perfect.

“Leo is going very well now.

“Of course, it did cost me some time of training to get him back on track. He is spending the afternoons in the paddock as
you can see in the photos (shown here). A great way to keep him happy.

Mikala and Henrik are enjoying some time together at Gestüet Tashof in Neumünster, where Leonberg is stabled. She train with Ernst Hoyos, but in Wellington works with Lisa Wilcox.

Their children are having fun with friends and grand parents in Denmark.