A jumpy day

It seems that almost every day that I have been with the Meire family there are horses on everyone’s brains...and on the 3rd of August was no exception. In fact the 3rd of August was an especially special day regarding horses as it was the day Eliane would be competing in her first horse jumping competition. My host father Robi and my host brother Matias would also be competing in the horse event as they do most weekends.

I have never been to a horse jumping event so was rather excited and interested.
Is saw all of my host family’s jumping events and they all went extremely well.
Now I am not sure if this is normal but in this even the riders each had a partner and your scores and times were added together and then the winners were decide by which team had the lowest score and the fastest time.

Eliane attempted her circuit and while her speed was not extremely fast she managed not to knock down a single hurdle, so received a score of 0…and putting her possibly in a ribbon receiving position.




Now all my host dad had to do was do the course without knocking over a hurdle and they would be set for a ribbon and the possibility of first place (as long as not one was faster than them)

My host dad completed the course in great speed

He jumped all the hurdles , finished with a perfect score of 0


and a smile across his and Eliane's face.







This was a wonderful achievement for Eliane, as it was her first ever jumping competition and many of the other riders had knocked over a considerable amount of hurdles…one lady even fell of her horse.

The day continued and some teams preformed extremely well and had great times and 0 points….

so Eilane and Robi were no longer in first place but would however receive a ribbon.

My host brother and his partner were the stars of the day with the fastest time and the least hurdles knocked over (o).



They both rode beautifully and had won the competition.

This meant they would receive a white ribbon and the rest of the ribbon receiving participants would receive a ribbon of another colour.

The horeses all lined up to receive their ribbons







and then they all rode off in a procession behind the winners.

It was a fun day and I relay enjoyed learning a bit about the events. I was even lucky enough to be given my host Dad's ribbon as he said that he had so many ribbons he only kept his wining ones. However my host sister kept her ribbon as it was the first one she had ever won.