On the 12th of March, 17 countries arrived in Leuven to commence the SRNC being hosted by the Belgium student riders. It was great to have so many countries there and especially to have Romania back. The theme for the fancy dress on the first night was the toga party which was a great party.

With 54 riders we all knew we were in for a great weekend of competition and plenty of fun.

The first day was the dressage where we saw a lot of good team tests and it couldn’t have been too easy on the judges as any time we looked over they were asking for more water. We must have been good enough to make them sweat and get dry throats :-)

After the first round 18 riders went through to the second round where again good tests were ridden by all. Unfortunately a certain Spanish guy was eliminated for not wearing gloves. Tut tut his mother wouldn’t be proud of him!

The Friday night was the Gala dinner where we all went to a traditional restaurant and had a lovely meal despite setting a certain Irish guy’s hair on fire! Not saying any names CANADA! But the food was nice and everyone was happy. As per usual at these events “Singing in the Rain” was roared out by nearly all 150 people who attended, even the judges and sponsors joined in. And to make the night even more interesting there was a trampoline which saw a lot of excitement until a wallet got lost :-( But apart from that it was a super night.

I think some of the Veteran GB riders have lost some of their stamina. A certain chap from Scotland completed the first and second round dressage only to sustain a knee injury whilst dancing in his kilt on Friday night and had to be replaced by an equally geriatric female GB rider for the Show Jumping. Despite the obvious age disadvantage (Their combined age being somewhere in the 60’s), the duo managed a combined individual placing of second securing the individual silver for team GB. Not bad for old folk ay?

Saturday was the jumping and to all of our surprise everyone was up by 9am and ready to ride which helped get the competition under way. The funniest Jumping round that I saw was Jenn Peters first on the 4/5 yo novice horse Vienna that jumped about 1m25 over the ~90cm first round track. Despite the massive jumps she stayed focused and proceeded into the second round. Well done Jenn.

That night was the florescence party and there were a lot of crazy outfits. I think two most revealing and disturbing were Belgium’s own Bram and Keon. Lads there’s a time and place for those costumes ha ha.

The only casualty of the whole weekend was a head injury to a Spanish Rider. The renowned show jumper survived all the way to the Semi-Finals of Show Jumping. However despite his balance and good seat on a horse the Spaniard sustained an eye injury when slipping off a table whilst dancing. A trip to hospital to assess the nasty bang to his head did him no harm at all, if anything it helped him sober up! We are delighted to report that he was later released from hospital having been given the OK from the amused doctors. The rider was later seen sporting a black eye which he covered up so cleverly with a BIG pair of sun glasses.

Sunday the final day was action packed with both the semi final and final of the dressage and showjumping. The dressage saw 2 lovely tests to music and 2 scripted tests. But the luck was on the Austrian’s side (Claudia Nuener) to marginally beat the Luxembourg man.

The showjumping was next where it was a battle between Canada in RED and Germany in BLACK where we saw good riding but it was the quick Canadian ( Holly Haymans) who came out on top with only one fence separating them.

Over all it was a great weekend and I can safely say on behalf of everyone who was there THANK YOU VERY MUCH to the Belgium OC who organised a super weekend of competition and party.

See you all in France in July.