Wellington, FL – January 28, 2014 – The winter show season is in full swing in Wellington, Florida for the 2014 Winter Equestrian Festival, where Norway’s Eirin Bruheim will be competing for the full 12 weeks. After a successful summer in Europe, Bruheim has returned to the United States with her string of talented mounts from Nordic Lights Farm to compete alongside Olympian Norman Dello Joio. With the first three weeks under her belt, Bruheim has already started racking up great rounds with her horses.

During the first week of competition, Bruheim kicked things off with a 10th place finish in the $6,000 1.40m Open Jumpers riding NLF Campbel. She then competed in the $10,000 Low Amateur-Owner Jumper Classic, where she qualified for the jump-off with Anyway, and incurred just four faults to place 13th. The next week, NLF Newsflash had a beautiful clear round in the $6,000 1.40m Open Jumper Speed class, which has 75 entries. Bruheim and NLF Newsflash crossed the finish line in 76.039 seconds with all he rails intact to take home the 9th place honors. This past week proved to be the best so far, as NLF Newflash showed in the $15,000 SJHOF High Amateur-Owner Classic. A fault-free first round helped them advance to the jump-off, where they lowered the height of a single fence to capture the sixth place honors.

“The first few weeks of WEF have been great,” smiled Bruheim. “NLF Newsflash has stepped up to bigger classes and has been very consistent. NLF Favorite has jumped consistent clean rounds and is warming up for the season nicely. NLF Billy On Show has just started showing and jumped two clear rounds in the 1.30m Open Jumpers. The others have also been great too, and I can’t wait to see what this season has in store. Working with Norman is great. He knows so much and has a fix for anything. “

Bruheim began training with Norman Dello Joio at the end of 2013, and it is proving to be a very successful relationship. “Eirin is a terrific student,” he stated. “She’s a talented girl and she’s very dedicated to her horses. I think that she’s doing very, very well she has a nice string of young horses coming up. We have short-term goals for each horse and where we think they should go and where they should end up. The long-term goals are for her to be the best competitive grand prix rider she can be internationally.”

Dello Joio added, “She has an exceptional mare, NLF Favorite, and she’s quite hot, but I’ve been helping Eirin deal with her temperament. She’s already competed in some 1.40m and 1.45m classes internationally with Eirin. I’ve dropped her down and I’m just going to revisit all the basics with her and get her as relaxed and rideable as we can in some of the smaller rings and then bring her back up when its time. I think she’s an exceptional mare and I think she has potential to be a really, really top horse.”

Nordic Lights Farm is a 70-acre establishment located in Tomball, TX, that was founded in 2007 by the Bruheim family to help further the equestrian goals of 20-year-old Eirin Bruheim and 18-year-old Lene Bruheim. Both girls have worked their way up through the ranks and are currently competing at the top levels in the hunter and jumper divisions aboard their incredible string of horses.