Dressage
“Salute”......
To all riders,
colleagues, breeders and horse lovers.....
For those who do
not know me, I would like to shortly introduce myself. My name is
Adriane Jandrell, 37 years old, being on the NAMEF DRESSAGE
Committee about two years now.
I ride myself,
my passion being Dressage Riding. I am a Dressage Judge up to level
E here in Namibia.
I would like to
use “my Dressage Column” to inform anybody who is interested on all
happenings in and around the Dressage Circle on a regular basis. For
that, I would appreciate everybody’s input, should you have relevant
Dressage News, which I perhaps don’t know about, please feel free to
let me have it.
My role in the
NAMEF: the previous year has passed in a flash, and when starting at
NAMEF I had so many visions and ideas, but unfortunately most of
those were not realized last year. I first had to find my feet in
the committee, learn my duties and responsibilities as well as find
ways and means to hopefully partly achieve my goals.
Our main aim in
the second half of last year was to redo the NAMEF rules and
regulations. It might not look like it, but it took many nights and
hours for the committee to finalize and finish the rules, which are
now close to done. On the Dressage Side we have taken most rules
from the SANEF rulebook, not only because we ride the SANEF tests in
Namibia, but also because we often have South African Judges coming
to our shows and judging according to their rules. This was at times
confusing for our riders, as they were not aware of many rules from
SANEF. This way we can also get accustomed to the SANEF rules, which
helps us again, when competing in South Africa. The new set of NAMEF
rules will be available soon. There is still some fine tuning to be
done, which should be finalized in the next month.
Dressage in
Namibia at this stage: as we all know, we lost our last and then
only M horse SAMURAI, from Bri Davidow, late last year. SAMURAI had
competed on the PRIX ST GEORG level at the FEI DRESSAGE CHALLENGE
for the last three years very successfully and the pair was an
example to many of us Dressage Riders.
Unfortunately at
this stage there are no registered EM horses, Pirate Prince from
Summary Piepmeyer had been competing in EM last year, but then
having had an unfortunate accident, where he broke his
wither...according to Summary this will put him out of action for a
few months, but the prospect of him competing is positive. We hold
thumbs for that very talented horse. There are a few upcoming E
grade horses, and a big pool of N horses in all age levels. I hope
that in this year we can put a little more emphasize on the Dressage
riding and get those talented horses and riders into the higher
levels. Guys, Dressage riding is fun and every show jumper should
give it a try!
I am positive
that at some stage the Namibian Riders and their horses will be able
to compete successfully on a higher level in our neighboring
countries. I remember the times, when the South Africans were
“nervous” about the Namibian Dressage Riders competing against them.
I hope that one day we will get to that stage again.
If we look at
our marks in the FEI DRESSAGE CHALLENGE we can see that we
definitely don’t need to hide away, but can compare very well with
our fellow competitors. Just last year the NAMIBIAN TEAM had won the
overall Challenge, as well as our Novice and Children rider being
first overall.
I will hopefully
be able to convince more show organizers to stage more Dressage
Events at their shows on various levels, so that our horses and
riders get more mileage and collect more points, and that we have
more horses competing in higher classes in the near future. We
definitely have the riders and horse material in this country.
Another aim for
this year from my side is, to try and do more for our Dressage
Judges. For us as judges it is often difficult to judge, as the
timeframe in-between the shows we judge is so long. We do not have
the exposure that our South African colleagues get. I have planned a
few Judges seminars, get togethers and work shops on a regular
basis, as well as hopefully being able to getting new judges on
board. The latter will take a while, as all judges need to go
through a training stage before being able to judge. So if there is
anybody out there who would be interested in becoming an applicant
judge, please contact me for the details.
The next
Dressage and Show jumping show will be held on the 14th
and 15th April at The Gymkhana Club in Windhoek and I
hope to see many riders competing. If we look at our show calender
after that, it is quite busy!!!! What a good sign!
Closing this
letter I would like to wish the riders and horses that are competing
at the EASTER FESTIVAL in Johannesburg not only a good and safe
trip, but a super show-GOOD LUCK! A few pairs have taken their own
initiative of entering their horses at the Easter Show, and out of
those we were fortunate to being able to select a Dressage Team,
consisting of ANNETTE KUENZLE on ROLLING THUNDER, DETLEF FISCHER on
ATHLET and SYLVIA SNYMAN on GIGANT The competition is being held on
N level and we wish all of you only the best.
BEST REGARDS
ADRIANE
