Rodrigo Pessoa, probably one of the best ranked riders, was born in Paris, France November 29, 1972, he is the son of Nelson Pessoa, a great rider of his time. He was one of the youngest riders to compete in an olympic game at the age of 19. He has over 50 Grand Prix wins which is the highest category, he has won over six million euros in his career as a rider. He won Olympic Bronze Medals in the years 1996 and 2000 in Team Jumping and won gold medal in Athens 2004 in Individual riding. His first Grand Prix competition was in 1988 and since then he has had a career full of succes. In 1998 he competed Giandini Lanos and became the youngest world champion at the age of 26 at the FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES in Rome. He continued this by wining the world cup in Balaubet du Rouet three times in a row and winning second place the fourth time setting a world record. Later on he was named the the world’s best rider and in the Show Jumping Year trophy. In 2007 he won the individual silver medal and team gold in the Panamerica Games of Rio de Janeiro 2007. His largest sponsors are rolex, Sony Ericksonn, AMG, GPA, Embraer, and BIC. Here there is a list of his horses along the years:
Eric Navet, probably one of the best riders in history, and in my opinion the best rider in the present. This rider, along with many others such as Rodrigo Pessoa, I have studied through out many videos of him in Grand Prix competitions posted on You Tube. These way I decided this is my favorite rider and my idol and decided for him to be the first in the biography posts I am going to make of my favorite riders.
Eric Navet was born in Bayeux, France May 9, 1959. He is an Olympic rider, a World Championship rider, and an European Championship rider. Along the years he has collected many championships. In 1990 he won the World Champion title with the horse Quito de Baussy, a year later with the same horse he won the European Champion title. Ten years later in Jerez, Spain at the 2002 World Equestrian Games he led his team and teamates into a very fought gold medal. That year Eric qualified to the “Final Four” competition wich only takes place at these games. The championship consist on the best four qualified riders compete four times, one on their horse and the other three times on horses of the other riders qualified for the test. In this competition Eric won a very difficult silver medal with his horse Dollor Du Murier which he also competed in the olympic games of Athens 2004. Last year was Eric best year he won about 767,000 euros in competitions in Europe and around the world. This year he has won about 20000 euros in one Grand Prix Competition in France and is going to participate in the olympic games.
What I like most about this rider is his calm and flawless style and how he keeps the horse at a same rythym of canter the whole track and how almost never he hits a pole and falls to the ground.
The two last weeks have been pretty intensive for me I only slept one night at home. The first week I went to Guatemala to a very important compeition were many talented riders with great horses participated. It was a wonderful experience because I got to know many new people and I got to see them riding. The level was amazing I had never seen something like that they take the sport very seriously. Even the smallest kids have the best riding gear. I wish that here in Costa Rica people took riding so seriously. Our riders did very well in the competitionon of them won the 1.20 open category and the over all team won second place, just below El Salvador. This was the first time in many years that the team of Guatemala didn’t win or got to be in the first three places. The third team I believe was Honduras. About thirteen Costa Rican riders competed in the one star CSI competition. I hope that next year I have the cance to go and compete and to go see all my friends. While there I got invited to other competitions like this one in El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, and another one in Guatemala. Just after I arrived from Guatemala I left for the school trip to Manuel Antonio in Quepos, Costa Rica. Manuel Antonio is a national park in Costa Rica that beatiful beaches and a great diversity within the flora and fauna. We saw monkeys bird and other wonderful animals native from this beatiful area of transitional forest. At the beggining of the trip we went to Turubari a park in the road to Manuel Antonio, I had a great time and enjoyed the canopy a lot. The second day we went rafting. It was one of the best things I have done in my life, I really enjoyed the adrenaline and swimming in the river it was very cool. The third day was my favorite, we got to relax and go to the beach, then we went and did some community service inside the park and went for lunch in a restaurant in front of the beach. Then we got to the hotel packed our things and went home. The busses were really nice we even got to see two movies while traveling it all was a great experience! Thank you Ms. Rumford for planing the trip!
Last week there was a jumping clinic in La Caraña with a German lady. I can’t remember her name but the clinic was very interesting and learned much about her. She lives a season in Canada for the Grand Prix competitions then she goes back to Germany. She is very qualified for her as a rider and trainer and it was a great experience being able to ride with her. This types of clinics are very important for the development of the sport here in Costa Rica because we don’t have high level trainers like they do in other countries mostly because of the lack of economic support from the Olympic committee to the Equestrian Federation (FECR). This causes low-level competition making private companies and people have to bring clinicians like the one they just brought in order to keep the level. But it is not enough. Even though there are a lot of talented riders in this country they can’t do it alone. They need the support of the Olympic committee in order to pay the tickets and other expenses of the rider and horse to compete in high-level competitions outside the country. I belief that in all the years equitation has existed in Costa Rica only two riders have gone to the Pan-American Games and they both had to pay the expenses of the horse’s transportation and theirs and both have done very bad presentations. Sport in the country has to grow and support from the Olympic committee here in Costa Rica is urgently needed but this committee is very corrupt and only gives money to sports like soccer that are popular but the team is really bad and doesn’t show any positive results, what I mean is that they don’t win games. We are just asking for a chance to get to the top and there is a lot of talented riders that with the proper help they surely can become Olympic riders and give a name to the country when talking about equitation.
Every horse is different not only because of their various personalities, but because of the breeds, that most of the time determine aspects of the horse’s personality and physical appearance. Along the years, people have chosen to mix these breeds in the search of perfection. Some people may be looking for physical perfection; other people could be looking for a horse with a proper mentality for the job he is being breed for. Perfection is a relative word because its definition varies depending on the person who is mixing the breeds. For example, if you want a horse to walk on rough mountain trails my recommendation would be a mix between Quarter Horse and Andalutian Horse in order to get a horse with a fair size great backs and an outstanding intelligence and will to do whatever you ask them. These breed is actually not very know but in is called Aztec and these horses are very sporty and also have a very loyal personality. If what you want is a show jumping horse I recommend mixing a Thoroughbred with a Warmblood in order to get the sportyness of the Thoroughbred with the bones and strength of the Warmblood. Purity in breeds is not always the best thing to have because all breeds have flaws and to correct those flaws you should have to cross that breed with one that its strength is the other ones flaw, if you get me, it is to improve the flaws in the way of creating a perfect horse.
Why do I like it so much? That is the question I always ask myself. Is it because I am good a it or because of what I learn every single day without exceptions. Maybe it is because of all the friends I make that at the end of the day, they are my real friends. There is something that has always captivated me about equitation, and that is the ability to learn something different every single day without expecting it and from the most random people. You are never done with the topic not nearly done with it, in fact there is a huge reason to not be in the edge of finishing and that is horses. They are animals and all of them are different there is not two horses alike and that is what makes equitation so hard. Something I really hate is when people who haven’t even tried to get on a horse say it is easy and that the horse does all the work. Well for those people there are some news first of all horses wouldn’t do any work without us telling them to do it. And believe me, it is hard to tell them what to do because even though they are intelligent animals they still are animals and they need to learn someway. I bet if one of that people who say that the horse does all the work, they wouldn’t last five minutes on top of that saddle, and I love to proof people wrong. Now I just wanted to state that so let’s get back to the good thing the things I like about this sport. The friends, every single day I meet new people, people who are willing to be good friends and support you in good or bad situations. You get to know people all around the world and at the end you know you will have someone to support you all around the world.
Hello People: I wanted to create this entry to tell you why I decided to make this blog. There is one simple reason to the creation of this blog, the reason is because it is an English assignment, and to be honest if I wouldn’t had this assignment the idea of creating a blog would of never cross my thoughts. The topic I chose for my blog is simply my passion, what I do everyday and love doing, it is simply what I was born around and what I’m growing around, It is just what I love doing, what caused me to have most of my friends and what I enjoy the most in my life. Also, because I wanted to discuss about several aspects of my passion with different people than the ones I see everyday and get different point of views. I also wanted to get to know more people through this site, talking about what I love. By this point it is very probable that you have an idea of what my passion is, not because of what I have written previously, but because of the name of my blog. Yes, my passion is horses. It may sound like a cliché but because of the way I write about you should see how seriously I take it. I utterly adore horses and everything that has to do with them. What I practice the most is show jumping, but I also practice dressage and western riding sometimes. I like to think of English riding more as a sport and western riding as “comfort riding”, to release stress caused by English riding and other activities such as school. The riding style I prefer or like better is English riding, specifically show jumping, what I like the most about this certain sport is the adrenaline it produces, there is no chance for fear, everything happens so fast. You have to be in control of two things: the first thing is your body, your position over the saddle and the horse, and you mind, you can’t be scared and you need to fix your mind in your objectives, you have to concentrate because this is a very dangerous sport. Once you dominate the aspect of your body you need to focus on your horse try to figure out his/her character because you don’t only depend on yourself you depend on an animal, which you can’t control completely because even though they are very intelligent creatures they are animals and they can use that intelligence against you . horseback riding is a very difficult sport and you have to have the talent inside yourself, practice does help but if you don’t have the talent it is going to probably be impossible in higher levels of the sport. I would like to read the way people think about what I wrote, there point of view, if they agree or if they don’t, please respond to this entry!!
