Belgian Grand Prix rider Vicky Smits-Vanderhasselt is continuing her string of success with yet another victory in the Grand Prix at the Löwen Classics 2011 CDI Braunschweig in Braunschweig, Germany, on 12 - 13 March 2011. Aboard her own and Paul Mais' Hanoverian mare Daianira van de Helle Smits booked her third victory in a row after Bremen and Munster against a field of top ranked international dressage riders.
After a long recovery from injury by both rider and horse in 2010, Smits and Daianira (by Dream of Glory x Ritual) returned to show ring at the CDI-W Mechelen at the end of December 2010. The combination lacked form and routine and scored below par. However, 32-year old Smits straightened the matter by winning the indoor competition in Munster impressively beginning of January 2011, scoring 72.213 % in the Grand Prix and fending off such riders as Nadine Capellmann, Isabell Werth, Helen Langehanenberg, Anabel Balkenhol and Patrik Kittel.
Two months later the combination repeated that feat in Germany by acing the CDI Bremen Grand Prix with 70.447 % and referring Ellen Schulten-Baumer and Isabell Werth to second and third place. Last weekend in Braunschweig, Smits completed the hattrick by winning the Grand Prix with 70,532 %. In the Kur to Music they placed second behind Hedda Droege after having scored 74.00%.
"Everything went really well in the Grand Prix and I was able to ride an almost error-free test," Smits-Vanderhasselt explained. "Only in the last time I felt some tension. In the kur to music I didn't really make mistakes, but it was only the second time that I rode the kur in competition and I don't have enough routine yet. Maybe that's why I focused to much on riding the movements synchronously to the music. I couldn't give it a full 100% just yet. I'm super happy with Dana, because she's so extremely co-operative and I can really ride her to my feeling."
Smits-Vanderhasselt is almost six months pregnant and has entered for one more show, the 2011 CDI-W 's Hertogenbosch 24 - 27 March 2011, as final competition before her baby break, but it is not yet clear whether she will compete.
"I fear that I might not make it for Den Bosch," she told Eurodressage. "I'll be over six months and my tummy is starting to get in the way. I'll decide in a couple of days."
The young Belgian will hopefully be ready and in the saddle again to compete at the 2011 European Dressage Championships in Rotterdam, if selected for the team by the Belgian Dressage committee.
"I'll try everything in my power to be ready for the European Championships, but of course I don't know in advance how things will go," she admitted.
Photos © Walburga Schmidt, Jost-Philipp Fischer - courtesy Löwen Classics
Related Links
Scores 2011 CDI Braunschweig
Scores 2011 CDI Bremen
Scores 2011 CDN Munster