With Caroline, I dared to start in the grand tour. It was the first time she did a 1.5m event; previously it had always only been 1.4m. And she did great and stayed clear! I had taken Venus with me for the small tour and she also jumped very well.

Gert-Jan had taken our eleven-year-old Vampire with him to Estoril. A wise decision! On the Friday, the two of them jumped to second rank, in an incredibly fast jump-off. Only two out of the seven pairings stayed clear in this jump-off: Hello Sanctos with Scott Brash in the saddle and our Vampire with Gert-Jan! Great!

It was quite a pity, though, that on the Saturday Vampire had a knock-down in both rounds and only ranked 14th.

But all in all we are quite content. And then we took some time off with and for Marlyse. That was marvellous! Next weekend, we will take some youngsters to some tournament and then we go to Villach in Austria.