Doron Kuiper’s showgroom Maaike Euvermann fills us in on how she tries to keep the horses entertained and happy during lockdown. 

"Hi everyone,

I don’t know where to start. Normally we go to a lot of international shows, from 2* till 5*, and to national and training shows every week. And now.. Completely settled at home. On a positive note I can see now how the young ones are getting better and stronger, see them trained and moving forward and the horses that had busy weeks before the coronavirus exploded are happy to be outside in the field and paddocks.

I try to do my best for the horses to make them as happy as possible. For them it’s also something else than to go on the truck and go on a new adventure every week. I have to entertain them and try everything so that they don’t get bored. It’s also different for me because on the shows you take care of between 2 or 4 horses, now I have to take care of 14.

Missing the shows? Yes of course. Over the last couple of years, I made a lot of ‘horse-talk’ friends. Almost every week you see each other, hang around and do funny stuff. The days are also weird as normally you leave on Tuesday/Wednesday to the shows and come back on Sunday. Now I almost have a ‘normal’ weekend.

There is also a lot of time now for cleaning everything, my truck was ready to go to Indoor Brabant. Now it’s totally empty with not a single shaving in it... It’s sad but we have to keep working, only in another way than we are used to do!

I hope the horses will not be crazy with me being at home for the next ten weeks, haha.

Keep on smiling and love your job (because I do)!

See you soon!

Maaike"

No reproduction without permission, copyright © World of Showjumping.com