Day 1 of the individual championships

The competition is being held at the Royal Dutch Equestrian Centre at Ermelo about 15k from Harderwijk; set in the forest with a cross country course, stabling and several arenas with plenty of undercover spectator seating this is a great venue for the competition.
Here is our group standing near the sculpture of Ramiro.
All riders get a start in the individual competition so today the lower half of the field competed.The scores today ranged from 68.316% to 56.684% in the junior comp so with another 35 riders tomorrow it will be interesting to see what the top 3 riders can produce.

The riders compete in reverse order based on results in the teams test. Germany won team gold in the juniors with Netherlands sliver & Denmark bronze. In the young riders the Netherlands were the leaders with Germany silver and Denmark again in 3rd.
We were able to watch the riders training and warming-up which provided a wonderful learning experience for us. Many of the same problems we see at home were highlighted by the trainers. In order to have a chance of a medal in the individual riders need a score over 70% so accuracy of movements crisp transitions & clear changes between collected, medium & extended paces are a must.
The general impression from the first performances were loss of continuity of pace & hesitations in the more difficult movements bu still it is great to see so many well educated horses and accomplished riders. We can’t wait to see the top half of the field tomorrow.

Here's a pic that I took because it is hard to see the rider or horse for all the helpers. This is one of the Portugese team members: Joaquim Pontes and his horse Deutsche.
Junior team gold was Germany with The Netherlands silver & Denmark bronze.
Favourite in the young rider competition is Lotje Schoots & Torricelli of The Netherlands who has won the competition before and with a score of 73.316% in the teams test is sure too figure in the medals. Germany won gold in the teams with the Dutch team silver & another bronze to Denmark.

In conjunction with the championships a young dressage pony competition is being held for 4,5 & 6 YO. I must say I was a little disappointed with the standard & quality of the ponies today, all were kind & mostly obedient but we have quite a few ponies at home that would have given them a run for their money. Here's a pic of one of the 6YO.