Dressage competitor Shelly Franics talks Olympic prep and Rio itinerary.
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Photo by Alexandra Lynch |
Shelly Francis | Loxahatchee
Discipline Dressage
Olympic Bid Second-place finisher in the CDI4 Grand Prix and Grand Prix Special during week seven of the 2015 Adequan Global Dressage Festival; second-place finisher in the Grand Prix Freestyle during week three of the 2015 AGDF; seventh-place finisher in the 2014 CDIO5 Aachen Grand Prix Freestyle.
Best Trip Aachen, Germany. The 40,000 spectators created a traditional equestrian celebration for an entire week.
Olympic Prep We’re building up Doktor and Danilo’s fitness, looking at freestyle music, and making sure all the equipment is ready.
Gold Medal Significance It would mean we achieved an enormously difficult task.
Rio Itinerary Experience the culture, the food, and the entire Olympics.
Happy Horses They love competing under the lights to their freestyle music. Riding to music brings out the pure joy in them.
Speaking Portuguese I would say, “Turn up the music. Turn up the fun.”
Shelly Francis. | Photo by Alexandra Lynch
Lucky Charm I just sit down and go over what my horses need. Because they are all a bit different, I must tune into each individual before I get on.
Equine Trivia Horses love showing off what they can do and clear communication from their rider.
Favorite Memory Riding in the European competitions with Danilo (horse) this summer. He’s getting so confident and the scores are climbing up.
Toughest Challenge Riding through the award ceremonies
Dressage 101 There are intricate rules and each rider trains in a different way. Once you understand the communication, you can compare the judge’s scores for each rider and find small trends.
For more Olympic hopefuls, click here.
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