Review Malene Nootenboom

Horsemanship:  The entire video radiates the mutual trust between Stacey and Thor. Both under saddle and on the hand.

Showmanship: There is a clear structure in the video. From foal to the goals Stacey had for now with the dress on the horse! You mainly see the bond they have built together and from there the collaboration arises and develops!  Through her submission, she really shares her story. 

Difficulty level: To properly assess the level of difficulty, the fragments in which the horse was really worked with were a bit on the short side. But what is shown radiates a lot of joy. 

Evaluation Romy Huisman

Horsemanship: You know your horse from day 1 and everything shows that you want to give him a good life, both in training and the many free time around it. Your smile is contagious! The whole video exudes joy and pride! You've shown that you put a lot of time and love into educating Thor. You can also often be found with your horse outside the fences of the roadway, this requires a solid bond of trust, because leaving peers and going to unknown places can be a reason for tension. In the video, you can see that you and Thor have a good relationship everywhere, inside and outside the roadway. I'm happy for Thor that you're his human mommy.

Showmanship:  The music and variety of images give energy. I liked the text, not too much text and easy to read. The content of the text brought extra information and emotion to your story. It is a nice overview of the past 5.5 years that you have been together. I would have appreciated it if you had made an intro (and possibly an outro), in which you told, for example, that this video is for the HGH contest.

Difficulty level:  The pieces of video in which the training could be assessed were small. I have seen 3 pieces of dressage groundwork: A piece on the volte, learning travers(?) on the hoof stroke and the hindquarters sideways on the volte. It strikes me that you have too little connection from your hand / rein with the spine of your horse. Also, your noseband seems to be too loose, so it slides too much on the head and you cannot receive refined information and pass it on to your horse. I think you use too much whip in the pieces of film, I don't think this is necessary when you are going to improve your own body posture/position and rein connection; Then you will learn to feel, catch and then influence the hind legs. The whip is an assistant, make sure you don't overwork it, because in the end it causes a lot of noise on your connection.