Having traversed Canada and U.S. to compete for her first time in Florida, former Canadian Pan Am Team member Karen Pavicic declares it a great move, highlighted by positive competition results and a close-knit experience with fellow Canadians.
The coast of California is the British Columbian’s usual route for the winter CDI show season. This year, however, thanks in large part to a grant from Dressage Canada, Karen was able to send her horse to Wellington to join other Canadians in increasing competitive success, camaraderie, and the unique atmosphere in this “horse mecca”.
Looking forward to their third CDI next week, Karen and Don Daiquiri, the twelve-year-old Oldenburg gelding sired by Don Cardinale, competed in their first experience in a four-star CDI when the invitational AGDF 5 CDI 4* brought the horse and rider team their personal bests with a 68.7 percent at Grand Prix and 71.4 percent for the Grand Prix Freestyle.
The pair will also compete in the invitational AGDF 12 CDI 5*.
“It’s a horse mecca here. There are CDI’s every other weekend. People are in boots and breeches everywhere, even nice restaurants,” says Karen, a Canadian certified High Performance dressage coach who has represented her country at international levels for two decades including as a member of the Canadian 2007 Silver Medal Pan American Games team and has been numerously long and short listed for the Canadian team on several different horses.
Most exciting has been the learning opportunities for the Canadian competitors, highlighted by the “Canadian Fortnight”, a two-week in-depth symposium covering nutrition, FEI veterinary care, FEI judging, media and sports psychology.
“This has been the opportunity of a lifetime,” she says. “The Fortnight created such team spirit among the core group participating in all the sessions. You realize you are not alone, especially for me, coming from the other side of the continent in Western Canada.”
At the show she was able to confer with her mental coach Dirk Stroda who was speaker at the Fortnight. With her regular coach, Californian Dirk Glitz, unable to stay in Florida, Karen had the opportunity to work with Denmark’s Lars Petersen and looks forward to more help from him throughout the season. “To have guidance from someone with such experience really helped,” Karen says.
“With the support shown by Volker Moritz, Cara Whitham, Desi Dillingham and Dressage Canada, the Canadians are going forward with real momentum. What a change in just a few months. I hadn’t planned on coming to Florida. Then the grant came through and now I am so excited about the future.”
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