Pia Fortmuller and her partner Orion competed at the Vienna Masters held September 19-22, in the heart Vienna, Austria. Set against the beautiful backdrop of the Vienna City Hall, the competition featured the elite of the world’s riding scene.
Fortmuller of Priddis, AB currently living and training in Germany with Olympic medalist, Heike Kemmer, took on an exceptional international field of competitors with her long-time partner Orion, a 17-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding sired by Jazz. In Sunday’s FEI CDI4* Grand Prix Freestyle, the duo finished eighth with a final score of 71.325%.
Saturday afternoon’s FEI 4* Grand Prix saw Fortmuller and Orion finish the test with a final score of 68.191% for a ninth place finish.
“The Vienna Masters was truly a magical experience because the competition was right in central Vienna directly in front of the town hall. Although this made for a challenging venue for the horses, and it rained all weekend so the footing was not ideal, but I was so very proud of Orion,” commented Fortmuller. “He was really brave even despite the Jumbotron video screens (which Orion is terrified of) that circled the entire arena, I must honestly admit that the only one who made any mistakes was me. I made tempi change mistakes on both days which were really expensive to our overall score, but never-the-less, this competition was so well organized and the atmosphere of competing in such a prestigious city was very inspiring.”
Ground Jury for the event consisted of; S. Baarup DEN (5*), K. Wuest GER (5*), I. Maknami RUS (5*), C. Umbach LUX (4*), and E. Koffman AUT (4*).
For complete results click here.
Competitor videos are available here.
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