Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Astrid Appels Returns for Zada Enterprises LLC WEF Dressage Classic CDI

Our euro-partner Astrid Appels got a taste of the good life, when she came to The Palm Beach Dressage Derby, to help Phelps/Hathaway with coverage and photos. After being kept to the confines of her academic schedule over the previous four years, her visits have been frequent, but not frequent enough. So, it was with pleasure we welcomed her desire to return, just two weeks later to the Zada Enterprises LLC WEF Dressage Classic CDI, from her home in Belgium, to assist us in the final Wellington show of the season.

Currently working on her Doctorate in English literature, Appels, who graduated valedictorian in 2002 at the University of Brussels, is one of only 4 in her country to be awarded the coveted fellowship. Fortunately for us, this allows her a bit more freedom to be available to assist us in person more often. In addition to her annual trip in September for our Dressage at Devon coverage, we have finally convinced her to join us for our annual August trip to Jackson Hole, for The Event at Jackson Hole presented by Lexus, a Gold Cup qualifier for the sport of eventing.

We are very proud of our association with Ms. Appels which began in 1997 when we met on the internet after our respective websites won a coveted internet award. At the time, Ms. Appels was 16-years-old, and had developed Junior-Riders.com.

Appels owns and operates the popular eurodressage.com website, which is one of the world’s leading websites, along with dressagedaily.com, for dressage news and photos. She has since covered many events with us both in the United States and Europe, including Aachen, The World Equestrian Games, Dressage at Devon, and several North American Young Rider competitions.

Ms. Appels manages our busy HorseMarket Section and Who’s Who, in addition to monitoring and contributing on a daily basis to Dressagedaily and our ScoreSource.

In addition, as we are developing our newest venture, the PhelpsPhotos.com shopping cart and on-line FREE photo data base, it is her extensive knowledge of breeding data and pedigree information which has contributed to the growth of our photo data base, now with over 2500 searchable photos on-line. With her recent purchase of a Canon D10 Digital camera, we were happy to put her to work photographing. This was a particular pleasure for her, after doing her best at the dark indoor location of the Auctions and Stallion shows she has been doing in the indoor facilities in Europe.

Astrid had the opportunity to meet with many of her fans, who knew she would be coming back, from the editorial she recently posted on eurodressage.com. We and the international dressage community are proud and lucky to have her as a part of our team.

Related Links
Who's Who: Astrid Appels
www.eurodressage.com
www.phelpsphotos.com