Live from Aachen, Germany !!
	The following came as a live feed from Lendon Grey and Jessica Rizzi. Jessica won the trip during last year's NEJYR Dressage Championships. Hi Lendon - Hope your're feeling a little better than you were at the barn - as promised here is a sort of random colllection of thoughts on Aachen. I have to start by saying that the entire trip (with the exception of the cold weather and constant rain) was fantastic. I had not anticipated what an experiance it would be, as everything was so different from the American approach to competive dressage. First of all, the horses were amazing. Predictably, a large number were simply breath-taking. The quality of gaits and ability were for the most part miles away from anything we have. Just as wonderful to watch, however, were the sort of ordinary horses who performed so beautifully. These horses were truly Grand Prix horses, solid, confirmed, well schooled, and relatively unflappable. They were generally cool competitors themselves - even most of the horses who were quite hot outside the arena moved from movement to movement within the test with a focused, quiet demeanor, and clearly knew what was expected of them. I should add that in the fairly small number of spooks, every rider reacted by sitting quietly and giving their horse a discreet pat on the neck before continuing with thier test, which was very nice to see. Some random observations about the horse and rider combinations - none of the female riders, whether their hair was long or short, wore a hair net. Every single bridle we saw had some sort of very decorative brow-band. All of the German riders wore their country's colors, but we also saw lots more rhinestones, gold and silver chains, and inlays than at our shows. European riders have some fantastic boot-polishing secret, even in the moments of torential downpour, every rider had GLEAMING boots. The most incredible thing about the show was the size and magnitude of it. The complex itself, which I think was built soley for this once-a-year event, was beatiful, and obvioulsy very expensive. Dressage had its own stadium, in addition to two schooling rings, a small warm-up area, and an indoor hall with stadium seating. The footing in the stadium somehow stayed puddle-less despite the week's worth of ceaseless rain. For the last three days of the show, the stadium was packed- every seat was filled and people were crammed into the standing room areas. The crowd itself was amazing- they would groan in sympathy when a rider missed a tempi-change, and they booed and cheered as the scores were announced. The number of people walking around the grounds on any day of the show would have accounted for ten years' worth of saturday nights at Devon. Aachen was a wonderful experiance - although I was really disappointed to have to leave Farbenfrough in Germany - lots of good shopping, beautiful horses, and a really great group of people- all in all, INSPIRING! -Courtney Budd
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