Our travels thus far

Kassie and I about the board the plane! :) Very cool.

Jive and I getting ready to leave for Germany!

Kassie and Ray at the quarantine barn the morning of our flight :)

Jive and I at a stop on the way to New York

Jive looking out at a stop on the way to New York.


We set out on our adventure on Monday December 7th early in the morning. My brother came along with me as I drove Jive and I to the New York Airport. This is where Jive and I met up with our traveling partners, Kassandra Barteau and her stallion Ray. I had met Kassie briefly before at NAJYRC, but not formally. Her stallion was such a gentleman. Jive and him were friends right off the bat. It was about midnight when all the paper work was finally in order after arriving at JFK. I was then driven to my hotel for a few hours of sleep before our 8 am flight to Germany.

Kassie and I were picked up bright and early the next morning. Luckily, the breakfast was out super early at our hotel. We snatched some breakfast, and then were off to the airport to get our horses loaded up. We also packed some extra breakfast food because we had no idea how much food there would be on the flight. We later learned this would be unnecessary, there was so much food on the plane, it was amazing!

We got to the airport barn around 6 am, checked on our boys, got them ready to go and then waited for a truck to come pick them up. After they were loaded on the trailer, Kassie and I were off to go through customs and get ourselves loaded on the plane.

We traveled via cargo plane, which was very cool! It was a bit different then usual, but it was awesome. We had an amazing flight. We got some great winds and ended up arriving 45 min earlier then scheduled, even with a late departure. It was amazing! Our pilots were very nice.

When we arrived in Frankfurt, we were taken to the quarantine barn (also known as the "animal lounge"), where our boys stayed the night. Kassie and I were taken to a hotel close to the airport. In the morning, we were planning on shipping out at around 10am, so we got to the animal lounge at around 9 am. We ended up waiting a very long time to get all the paperwork done, as well as granted clearance to leave. Luckily, there was a food place nearby that we grabbed lupper (lunch/supper). When we finally got out of the airport, we were transported right to Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff’s place. It is the most beautiful horse estate I have ever been to. We were blown away by the place (and everyday I am still blown away by the beauty of the place). We are so thankful for their generosity!!!! Incredible people.

Kassie and I were the last young riders to arrive. Hannah Appleton, the New Zealand rep had already been there for 2 weeks! And then Mafalda from Portugal arrived shortly before Jive and Ray.

So we’re all settled in now. Got on Jive again this morning. Wow, was he ever raring to go! After a nice long warm up of walking for about a half of an hour, we did a light workout. My biggest goal for this competition is to do well by having Jive and I be the best pair we can be, and him listening to me fully can only achieve that. Today we just did transition after transition after transition. He was brilliant today. It was such a great feeling! He was really listening. Let’s hope we’ll keep that feeling the entire trip! ☺