Today we had tickets for the horse show again, but fortunately for the afternoon show instead of the one in the morning (as was the case on Friday) since too much food and too little sleep meant that we had a pretty hard time crawling out of bed at a reasonable hour. Still, we did manage to get there about an hour and a half before the final show jumping event (the final of the Western European league of the FEI World Cup) started, which allowed us to spend that time browsing through the trade show.
Of course, my bank account would have been better off had we not been in there so early. I ended up with not just the one coat I looked at on Friday, but a second coat as well, in the same colour but in a fitted, waist-long model that I can ride comfortably in when its really cold. Elio is a hopeless shopping-enabler. Instead of helping me to pick one of the coats, he was the one who encouraged me to take both. They are, however, very nice coats, and with one of them cut down to a third and the other to half of the original price I suppose it was a pretty good deal. And so was the set of riding underwear (fitted tights and a fitted, long-sleeved shirt) I picked up. I kept trying to find a good set through the whole of the unusually long and cold winter we had this year, but came up with nothing that was fitted and comfortable enough. Since this set was so cheap, I decided to take a chance and buy it without trying it on, and when I came home I was pleasantly surprised.
With the shopping done (even though I didn’t get any new boots—though I did make my mind about which type of leggings to get, I just need to try them on with my breeches and shoes on—or a new hat), it was time to head into the arena to watch the jumping. The course was pretty impressive, and out of a field of 37, 9 went clear (4 of them Swedes!). It made for a thrilling jump-off where Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum rode like a horse thief towards the last obstacle and just managed to edge out Maria Gretzer who had been in the lead.
After the jumping, it was time for the final of the indoor driving cup, a pretty new event that has quickly become a crowd favourite. No wonder, really, as the sight of the four-horse carriages careening around a course that combines elements of the marathon and the precision driving from the outdoor driving competition. Unlike during the dressage or the show jumping, here the audience is encouraged to be as loud as possible during each competitor’s run, to get the horses as eager and excited as possible. Add in some loud music, and you’re set for a fun-filled hour. Unfortunately, the Swedish teams did unusually poorly, but the Dutch winner Ijsbrand Chardon (who, by the looks of it, was absolutely thrilled to win) as well as German Michael Freund who came in second were extremely popular with the crowd. For my own part, I also quite liked seeing the all-Lipizzan team of Hungarian Zoltan Lazar.
All in all, two very exciting events. As usual, we’ll be back next year, though unfortunately they’ve had to move from the Easter weekend to February then on the off-chance that the local hockey team will qualify for the finals again since they were insisting on access to the arena for their games if that happens. Bugger hockey, I say. But at least we’re finally getting a World Cup final again in 2008.