Cathrine Dufour ready for Aachen with Cassidy but also worried about competing before Rio …

CDIO5* AACHEN

written by Cathrine Dufour 11/07/2016

During the Danish Championship at Broholm castle a few weeks ago, the Danish Equestrian Federation selected the danish team for Aachen CDIO5*. Atterupgaards Cassidy and I were among the four “lucky” one to represent Denmark in the Nations Cup.

Normally it would have been amazing to be selected for this huge competition, but according to the fact that the Olympic Games will begin just two weeks after Aachen, makes it very stressfull for both Cassidy and I. Usually when we come home from a big competition we spend like two weeks in the forrest, in the field and simply just relaxing and taking the time to restitute.

And maybe we will have all the time in the world after Aachen if we don’t perform well, but if the case is that we perform super good and stay on top of our game, then we should have a change to be selected for Rio De Janeiro.

So on one hand I’m super excited aboucathrine Dufour Cassidyt Aachen, and everyone I know are telling me how great, big and amazing Aachen is to be a competitor at, but on the other hand I’m very concerned about Cassidy and his health. Before going to Aachen he was checked by our vet, and everything is completely perfect; blood tests and clinical tests were simply super.  My vet secured me that Cassidy is in toptoptop shape and ready to perform.

That made me relax a little, and now I’m feeling more secure that we can do this together. So for now my focus in 100% on Aachen, and our performance at this huge competition. Yesterday I saw the masterlist, and booooy it’s a killer. The german A-team is represented and a lot of the best riders in the world are joining too. That kinda made my expectations drop a little, which is quite healthy I think. Now I can simply relax, keep focus on Cassidy and try to perform as good as we did on Broholm for the Danish Championships.

I’m super excited to arrive at the big competition ground, and of course to get started with everything.

You can follow Cathrine on dreamsports.tv Sunday morning for the Grand Prix Freestyle or on her blog

Photo: Cathrine Dufour