Belgian Young Rider Jorinde Verwimp and her 14-year old Dutch warmblood Tiamo showed great form on home turf sweeping a triple victory in her age division at the 2014 CDI Kapellen on 21 - 25 May 2014. Posting scores above 70%, Verwimp is eager to conclude her last Young Riders' year with a bang at the 2014 European Championships in Arezzo, Italy, this summer.
“Kapellen went so well for me and Timmie felt 100% with me during the tests, as well as during the warming up," said the 19-year old, who is eager to make the leap to Grand Prix. “The first day I rode a bit on the safe side but without mistakes, so on day two I decided to ride with some more power and it worked out very well as the score was almost 2% higher. In the kur I tried to ride on full power and the trot work was super. However we had some small mistakes that cost us some points in the canter.”
Jorinde feels the highlights of her tests are for sure her horses canter extensions, as well as Tiamo's steady and powerful trot work. “The most difficult things for him are the pirouettes as he sometimes takes over in the test, so that is what we are still trying to improve," she explained.
Jorinde scored 71.316% in the team test, 72.605% in the individual, and 75.125%, fending off all competition well. In the Team Championships test, a Scandinavian duo made a brave effort as Swedish Ellinor Magnusson was second on Pixar (68.921%) and Swedish based Dane Anna Zibrandtsen was third with Detroit (68.000%). In the individual test as well as the Kur to Music Dutch star duo Stephanie Kooijman and Winston came close but landed second place twice as the Dutch has to fight harder to receive top scores abroad. Belgian Alexa Fairchild and her bright bay gelding Timor were twice third, one percent behind Kooijman.
Trained by Anky Van Grunsven at her barn in Erp, Holland, where she is a working student, Jorinde feels Tiamo has a great personality and always gives the best of himself at shows. The horse is wrongly registered with the FEI as Tiano due to a copy or transferral error but his name is Tiamo, which means "I love you" in Italian.
“My dad found him in Holland four years ago and he was not easy to ride at that time but my dad saw his quality and took the chance," said Jorinde, whose father Wim is a former Belgian Grand Prix champion. "Right now I'm focusing on improving the canter pirouettes by riding a lot of work pirouettes and a lot of transitions to keep the control at every single step.”
Studying to become a riding instructor at Syntra in St Niklaas, Belgium, Jorinde still has to go to school every Monday and her goal for this year is the European Championships for young riders.
"The Europeans will be my last young riders' show on Tiamo. Afterwards I will make the transition to the Under 25 Grand Prix," she added.
Text © Sarah Warne
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