Wednesday

What a great start for Sweden! All four horses jumped clear and looked really good! Malin was first to go in the team with Tore and did a really nice round, Tornesch looked very relaxed and was jumping super!
It was really warm today and the class started at two o'clock when it was as worst but the horses seemed to take it fine, it was more the riders that looked a bit sweaty afterwords!
Sweden is on third place after the first round with France and Germany in front of us. For the teams that needs to qualify for the Olympics Sweden is in the lead so things are looking good so far! Tomorrow morning Räven is gonna make his first apperance here in Madrid and at 14.45 it's time for the teamcompetition. Keep your fingers crossed again! Sara

European Championship - Tuesday

Today I got up at 6.30, fed the horses and then went for a lovely spanish breakfast (coffe and croisant) with the other grooms. It's really cold here in the morning, and dark so its a bit hard to wake up when its pitch black outside! I took the horses for a walk before teamvet Jonas came to see them trot. Then Malin rode them both for a bit and they both felt good! At 11.45 it was time for the swedish team to do the vet check and all horses passed. At two o'clock the warm up started, sweden was almost last to go so we didn't jump until around five but then it was at least a little bit cooler. All of the horses looked really nice and relaxed so the feeling is good for tomorrow! Now we are gonna head back to the lorrys for something to eat (unfortunatly the food is horrible here) and then it's bedtime. Tomorrow it's a big day so keep your fingers crossed for team Sweden! Sara

Madrid

My internet has not been working for a week but now I finally got it going again! We had a good week in Gijon, Sweden was third in the nations cup and Räven was third in the Grand Prix! The show ended late on monday night so we stayed at the showground on tuesday to give the horses a quiet day before leaving to Madrid. Early on wednesday morning me, Malin(Peders groom) and Rebecka(Svantes groom) left Gijon and arrived at the stables outside Madrid. It was a fantastic place with really nice stables, a huge outdoor ring and the best of all a swimmingpool for us! Caroline decided to stay a bit longer so we had a couple of nice days in the sun! Angelica joined us on Saturday morning with her two horses and Malin arrived later in the afternoon. On Sunday the rest of the team arrived for a last training before leaving to the show. We got here on monday at lunchtime after only one hours drive. The showground is really nice and we got the best stables with shade almost all the day, but the horses seem to be taking the heat really well, probably better then us! Sara