As preparation for Blue Hors FEI World Dressage Team Championship Grand Prix that runs during Saturday and Sunday all riders had scheduled time for familiarization in the arena.
The familiarization is the opportunity to show the dressage horses a completely decked out arena with flowers, decoration, seven judges’ boxes and the very important camera set-up for tv- and streaming broadcasters. Especially the cameras that move and follow the combinations often cause issues the first time a bit unexperienced horse make the discovery: Yey I am movie star.
After doing conventional warm-up in the area behind the stadium all teams made themselves ready for their given time slot. The teams entered in the same order as they showed their horses for the Horse Inspection and each group had 20 minutes to use as they felt best for their needs. The individual riders went in grouped together as four or five combinations at a time.
So how do you spend 20 minutes of familiarization? Very differently, it turns out, some tested all the gears with Grand Prix movements – others walked around and shared more of a Ferdinand moment, stop, and smell the flowers.
Link to official start list individual
https://results.hippodata.de/2022/2124/docs/s_d1-i.pdf
Link to official start list team riders in order
https://results.hippodata.de/2022/2124/docs/s_d1-t.pdf
/Herning2022
