Oct 29, 2016: Imperio on rank eight and nine at Lyon

I am not totally happy about our start into the World Cup season... Imperio did not perform as he can, he was absolutely not himself. Maybe due to the long journey? Late Wednesday night, I worked him, as well as early Thursday morning - maybe that was not his preferred routine. He felt somewhat strange in the Grand Prix, nearly came to a halt after the first Piaffe, had some mistakes in canter - with the strong competition our result of 72.6 per cent was good enough for rank eight only.

On Friday, I did not ask too much of him during the warm-up, this also because he had been lying in his stall a lot during the day. So in the arena, he was much fresher - so fresh that at the beginning, he preferred showing a Piaffe instead of standing still! In spite of smaller mistakes in the flying changes he did a rather good test with great extensions, and with 76.15 per cent we made rank nine.

The other German competitors, especially Isabell Werth, did much better than us - we'll do our best to present ourselves in better shape at Stuttgart in mid-November.