Mikala Gundersen and My Lady (SusanJStickle.com)
"I am so thrilled to have come in first place today. I had a difficult ride with the wind; it was blowing very hard during the test, and Lady is a very sensitive horse," explained Gundersen. "It made her very tense right in front of the judges which hurt my piaffes. When she got a little bit nervous I did lose some points, but Shelly Francis and I have been so close all season and I got lucky today."
The atmosphere was challenging for many of the pairs, as wind gusts blustered through the AGDF grounds all day. The colder temperatures and rattling flags created trouble for riders throughout the competition. "I try to keep her very busy, but I don't want to make her tired. I want her to mentally be fresh, but not make her body tired so I did a lot of posting trot and made her really low in the neck to try to get her to relax," commented Gundersen when describing how she keeps "Lady" calm when surroundings start to bother her.
"I had some great highlights today. All of the extensions felt great, and I think we had a lot of nice movements in the test. I can't wait to see them on video," she smiled. "On days like today, I have to be very soft and giving with my hands because she is such a sensitive horse. I can't have her strong in my hand because she will take the rein and start to pull through. I'm always moving my ring finger trying to keep her supple, supple, supple." My Lady continues to improve with each outing, and Gundersen is looking to aim her at the first CDI 5* competition in Aachen, Germany, in May just before the Danish Championships and hopefully earning a spot on the European Championship Team for Denmark.
Shelly Francis had a great second day of competition at Week 7 of AGDF, placing near the top of the leaderboard with all three of her rides in CDI competition. "I had a very short warm-up with Doktor, but he was lit like a fire-cracker today!" she smiled. "He got a little bit tight in the rhythm in the trot work, but he was very good. The weather was very stimulating, and I'm very proud of the way all of my horses handled it, but it did keep them a little bit hotter."
Francis has been riding Doktor for nearly six years now, and their partnership is truly starting to shine as the pair has had top place finishes at all of the CDIs they have contested this season at AGDF. "I'm going to plan on doing another World Cup qualifier and see where that gets me. I've done one World Cup qualifier already and I plan on doing the next CDI here at AGDF. If it gets me to the World Cup then maybe I will consider that, but my plans are really still up in the air," commented Francis on her coming plans with the gelding.
Francis has worked diligently to fine-tune their tests and her efforts are obvious, as the duo greatly improved in specific areas that Francis focused on in the past two weeks since their last CDI competition. "I'm always working on getting everything nice and smooth. There were little moments when he would get tense in the middle of a movement, like the half-pass or the extensions. I think that was because of the wind though. I felt overall this week was smoother, and there was a better frame carriage. There are still some bobbles I would like to get rid of to make the test really smooth."