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Marketa Churovà: Our journey to Aachen

Thursday, 18 July 2019
CHIO Aachen 2019

Photo © Jenny Abrahamsson for World of Showjumping. Marketa Churovà with Suma's Zorro. Photo © World of Showjumping by Jenny Abrahamsson.

Sameh El Dahan and his show groom Marketa Churovà had a short but adventurous trip to Aachen, and in her guest blog Marketa tells all about arriving at one of the greatest shows in the world.

 


 

Before Aachen we spent five weeks at the Spruce Meadows’ Summer Series, where our horses got well introduced to jumping on the grass. From our experience there, we did a final pick of our four horses which would join us to Aachen; our precious Suma’s Zorro, WKD Exotic, 7-year-old WKD Enigma and our newest member of the team, Colour Girl, for the speed classes. 

The horses flew straight to Belgium and because we are based in Ireland, there was not enough time to take the horses all the way back home. Therefore, we were honored to settle at Peter Weinberg’s stable for a week off in between the shows. His stable is situated exactly 10 minutes from the Aachen showground. The first three days I spent on my own, while the horses were doing only light work. Later on Sameh flew in and joined me, so that we could start a proper training before the show started. 

On Monday afternoon, the day we were meant to go to the show, we were still really struggling to find a driver to drop us off. Thankfully, on the last minute Thomas, Peter’s son, took a pity on us and fitted between his really busy training schedule to drive us. But as he said, it had to go really quick. When we arrived in Aachen, there was already a queue of trucks waiting to get in and Thomas explained to us, that he had to leave and we would be left on our own. 

There was only one problem; we had a really big truck with a huge live-in trailer behind it and I have never driven a truck this size AND I never drove with a trailer at all. Sameh on the other hand, had never driven a truck at all, but has some experience driving trailers behind the car. After a bit of a discussion about which one of us is going to drive now and park the lorry, Sameh was pushed behind the steering wheel. I have to admit that he was really, really nervous and actually admitted that he is more stressed about moving around this giant than riding a GP! It was his very first introduction with a truck and I have to admit, that he parked like a pro and of course he made sure all friends around know how beautifully he parked on his own! After this, we unloaded our horses and stuff. The truck struggle continued when we tried to plug the trailer back on the truck, and after a couple of tries we felt safer to leave it to real professionals and put the keys to the right hands. By then it was time for me to rush to the vet check, where all our horses passed without struggles! 

On Tuesday two of our horses did a warm-up class, Suma’s Zorro jumped a 1.45m for training and to get the first feel of the show arena. Our 7-year-old superstar Enigma made us happy and gave us on day one a beautiful clear round in her youngster class. 

I am at CHIO Aachen for the very first time and I have to say, that I am very happy that we can be a part of such a show. Aachen has super facilities and horses are feeling really happy and relaxed. We are super excited for upcoming days, fingers crossed! 

Marketa



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