Weather Conditions posed a major challenge for the riders competing in the World Dressage Challenge, in Windhoek recently with Sumari Piepmeyer and Katiti Legolas from Reiterverein Swakopmund providing the Overall Best Score of 64.107 of a windy and chilly weekend’s proceedings. The pair judged by Thomas Kessler, FEI four star judge from Germany and local FEI judge Brigitte Davidow were unable to perform to their best in both the Senior I and Senior II tests, but managed better than their local competitors Nadine Flemming / Seeis Shelton on 63.036, Kirsten Chiappini / Playboy 58.393 and Marlene Reisenauer / Seeis Eymet 55.179 in the former. Their Senior II score of 58.667 could not match that of Flemming’s 62.955. As the only rider in the Prix St. George, 18 year old Flemming riding her very last event on Seeis Shelton before leaving for studies in Europe, scored 60.735. The World Dressage Challenge offers two age groups, Youth classifying riders between 12 and 16 years of age and Senior those older than 16. Further tests can be ridden in five performance levels, namely Youth, Senior 1, Senior Two, and Prix St George and Intermediate. Held between 1st of January and 31st of December each year, the challenge serves as a basis for riders to test their skills against others across the globe without having to leave their home country. The competition also offers a team event, which consists of a maximum of four riders with the best three scores flowing into the final tally. Namibian Team consisting of Kirsten Chiappini and Playboy (Gymkhana Club Windhoek), Nadine Flemming and Seeis Shelton (Gymkhana Club Windhoek) and Marlene Reisenauer on Seeis Eymet (Reitgemeinschaft Klein Windhoek). 528 riders from 36 nations competed in the 2018 event with Namibia’s team ranking at 29 and the individual rankings as follows: Prix St. George: 75. Nadine Flemming (Seeis Shelton) Senior II: 29. Nadine Flemming (Seeis Shelton) 69. Sumari Piepmeyer (Katiti Legolas) Senior I: 26. Camille Detavernier (Amaar Shatina) 53. Kate Alison (Callaho Eryka) 91. Sumari Piepmeyer (Katiti Legolas) 94. Kirsten Chiappini (Playboy) 125. Angela Dau-Pretorius (Merlot) 151. Werner Bartsch (Aragon) 161. Karin Schommarz (Bellissima Beau Cheval) Youth: 57. Linda Freyer (Claratal Chromatic) 85. Carmen Piepmeyer (Jason) PICTURE: Sumari Piepmeyer and Katiti Legolas from Swakopmund braving the cold and windy conditions at the 2019 edition of the World Dressage Challenge at Gymkhana Club in Windhoek.