Barbançon's Neumunster Freestyle Interrupted Due to Secretarial Issues

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2018 CDI-W Neumunster

For Olympian Morgan Barbançon Mestre the 2018 CDI-W Neumunster will leave an ever-lasting impression that is definitely not a positive one. The Spanish Grand Prix rider had to abort her World Cup qualifying freestyle on her 12-year old Oldenburg stallion Sir Donnerhall OLD (by Sandro Hit x Donnerhall) at the start of her ride due to secretarial issues.

Seconds after she had begun her freestyle ride on Sunday morning 18 February, the judge stopped her test and the five officials left their table to meet in discussing a matter ringside. For the audience it was very unclear what was wrong. Morgan was excused from the arena, after which runners came to the ring to distribute new score sheets to the judges.

For the World Cup circuit, judge Katrina Wust's "Degree of Difficulty" system has become a mandatory implementation of the freestyle judging system. Riders have to hand in their floorplan before they compete, so that customized score sheets can be printed out, which highlight the special movements that have a high degrees of difficulty for which the rider can earn extra points. The problem with Morgan's score sheet was that the wrong version had been printed out, which did not represent the choreography she was riding.

"They printed out the wrong floor plan," said a frustrated Barbançon, who is based with her horses in Weert, The Netherlands, and who trains with Alex van Silfhout and Kebie van der Heijden. "It was a nightmare, I’m so upset. Sir D was like never before and with all this he got really distracted."

Barbançon ended up scoring 73.225% to place 13th in the freestyle. Her dark bay stallion got very excited when he had to re-enter the arena and it requires all of Morgan's concentration to produce a good test.

"I’m very angry at them, but very proud of my horse for doing his utter best in this situation," Morgan told Eurodessage. "He was really stressed, but throughout the test I had the feeling he was like 'OK, mommy I trust you, it’s going to be ok. let’s do it'."

With family roots in France, Morgan has set her sights on the 2018 World Cup Finals in Paris in April. She has been going full force this world cup season to qualify for the Finals aboard her second Grand Prix horse Sir Donnerhall II OLD.

With World Cup starts in Mariakalnok, Lyon, Stuttgart, and London, Morgan was ready for the German instalment in Neumunster and she considered it critical to collect the necessary world cup points for Paris. The pair placed 13th in the warm up Grand Prix with 67.935% and Morgan wanted to give it her all in the freestyle. She had hoped for more after scoring 73.225% for her Neumunster freestyle.

"I hope it's not going to affect me going to the final, because it was a good chance to get points there (in Neumunster)," said Morgan, who will now be starting at the final qualifier in 's Hertogenbosch next month.

Morgan is currently ranked 9th with 43 points in the Western European League World Cup standing.