GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I had been writing a summaration for like 15 minutes and then I highlight all the text by mistake and press a key and boooooom; everything is gone! ARGH, here I go again then :

Contestants from the USA
  • Raymond Texel
  • Margie Goldstein-Engel
  • Will Simpson
  • Lauren Hough
  • Leslie Howard
  • Laura Kraut
  • McLain Ward


The contest was very exciting! The big favorite was Ludger Beerbaum and Gladdy's from Germany, who won the European Championships last fall.

There was a big discussion because Micheal Whitaker's horse Handel has an old tendon damage that he was bothered by today, but they still entered the competition.

Rodrigo Pessoa's horse Baloubet had colic last thursday, but also entered the competition.

The oldest horse in today's competition was For Pleasure from Germany, 16 years old.

There were 28 contestants totally, and all my personal favorites went to the second round (Pialotta & Rolf-Göran Bengtsson, Goldika & Toni Hassman and Baloubet & Rodrigo Pessoa). The person who was in the lead in the second round was the American McLain Ward, something I was not too happy about... See, a while back he was caught with putting nails in his horse's leg protectors (Sorry, I don't know the official name for those in English) as to make it lift it's legs as high as possible, and I know his family once did a big insurace fraud and killed their horses to get out money. Anyways, in the second round he tore down several fences, and all my favorites did as well. The grand winner was Cento & Otto Becker. On second place came Goldika & Toni Hassman (yay!), on third came Gladdy's & Ludger Beerbaum and on fourth place came Baloubet & Rodrigo Pessoa.

Oh and I saw that stunning black horse with the white snip again! His name was Elf and he was ridden by Jacek Zagor from Poland.

I'm gonna go check out those links you gave me now, hopefully it can teach me some of the English official names for the different things like the leg protectors and so on!