2018 WEG Training Camp - Tsetserleg

Hello, it's Boyd Martin here. What you're looking here is my horse, Sesterleg or Thomas. We've just spent the last week at Will Forde's beautiful farm down here in Southern Pines preparing for this year's World Equestrian Games. I'm doing this video basically because I'm bored out of my mind. Riding one horse a day takes its toll and I thought I'd do this video for the owners of the horse, Chris Turner and Tommy Turner and TJ and my website, the fan club on our website, and anyone out there that might be interested. So he spent five days down at Fordery's place and the two guys you see on the screen there are Scott Hassler and Eric Devander there. Scott's the dressage coach for Philip and myself. Unfortunately, Silva's at home with our newborn baby and she's only going to be able to make it down for hopefully just Saturday and a little bit of Sunday for the World Equestrian Games and try on. So these two gentlemen have been trying to get me on track. This is the first day of the or the second day of our training camp. I think this is on the Wednesday. And we also had Judge Christian Landot come and watch all the riders for the American team school their horses. And he was really helpful, actually. He sort of communicated to our coach, Scott Hassler, of what the picture the judges are looking for in eventing, which is slightly different to dressage dressage, but mostly the same. You know, the first day here we didn't do that many movements out of the test, but just more really worked on his balance and throughness. I think that afternoon or the next morning we had a bit of a cross country school again. This is Fordrey's cross country schooling field, which is awesome. I think it must be about 50 or 60 acres. It's good turf and I just wanted to pop Thomas over a couple of cross country fences before the biggest cross country round of his life, which is next week. Picture you saw Eric along with sort of my mentor, friend and teammate Philip Dutton, and they were working on Thomas rideability here. We went through the corners in four strides there on a bit of a bend just to check his turning. And then we decided to do it on three direct strides, sort of just the same jump, same combination, but just a slightly different ride. We obviously don't know what to expect at Tryon, but there'll be some jumps which are turning, some which will be forward and bold. It wasn't too big of a cross country school. He's been, he's a good cross country horse, Thomas. So we just kept it small. Probably prelim size fences, maybe a couple intermediate sized fences. Just popped him in the water here and you know, it's probably a little bit for me as well just to confirm that he's in form. Eric's been a great coach. He's got zero ego, which is wonderful. So Philip and him sort of chat away and between exercises have a bit of a chat. As you can see, Thomas is a good galloper. He's a Tricana bred horse. He's about half thoroughbred and half tricina was by the Mighty Windfall, which is Darren Chacha's Olympic mount. Bred in America. He was a little bit quick going up that up bank. So the boys said just to come and do the up bank to the skinny by itself here just to get him thinking. Sort of a bit of an awkward jumper, Thomas, but he's a good boy. This was yesterday. So this was Thursday. At the training camp we started to really sort of pick on a couple of the movements. This is one of the movements in the dressage test for the four star. She said I can a half past to the quarter line change and we put a couple of rails at just to make sure Thomas stays straight after his flying change and sort of get me in the habit of riding him straight after the change as well. Probably the greenest horse on the team. He's just done one four star at Kentucky this year. He's a good boy and he's good in all three phases. Not a big horse. I think he's about 16 hands. I think he's nine or 10 years old and I've been riding him just over two years. He was sort of carried up to the two star level by Michael Pollard before he came to me. And so of January 2 years ago Again, it's a tough one training for a big competition without my wife yelling at me. So Eric and Scott have been doing a good job. Then this morning we had a final jump. School show jumping coach Richard Picken jetted or drove down to help me and Philip and Lynn jump. And again, he's an unusual horse, little Thomas. We figured out jumping him really, really big at home doesn't do much except rattle him. And for our final jump score we just kept it small and worked on his ride ability. Kept him really, really confident. Wouldn't be the best Turner Thomas. He sort of jumps and then tears off a bit. So here Richard had us sort of jumping and then doing a nice balanced rollback turn and trying to keep the horse soft and relaxed through the. Like I said before, it's sort of smaller fences, I think here he had us turning sort of in a big circle and you can see that this is almost a cross country exercise where sort of jumping and bending your horse through the turn and no set strides. But Thomas finds this hard. Same with me actually just jumping and trying to get your horse to soften and relax. But this is pretty good for Thomas because he's a funny horse at home. He doesn't actually give you the best feel and it's important not to, I don't know, pressure him too much or train him too hard or push him too hard at home. And just be confident in the fact that come the competition day he's, he's very, very reliable and a big trier. So obviously it's a change of lifestyle for me, especially just having one horse to work all day. So it's been good opportunity to watch the other riders. You know, we've had Marilyn Little, Lynn Symanski, Lauren Keefer, Philip Dutton and Will Coleman in the camps. I've been watching them train their horses. Lynn and Philip have both got two horses each, so they're a little bit more occupied. And then, yeah, we're at Will Fordrey's farm here and it's a beautiful farm and his house is awesome. All the, all the guys are living in Fordy's house and it's, it's been really good, actually. Done a bit of table tennis and ping pong, bit of swimming in the afternoon and we've been working out with Fordy's personal trainer in the morning, so trying to keep busy. But we leave actually tomorrow for Weggs, which is Saturday morning. So what you're seeing here is the final jump and gallop before we head off tomorrow. And I was a bit dodgy in that turn there. You see me chase him and lunge at that. Celebrating the 80s plank vertical. So Richard and Eric scolded me and told me to do it again, land and try and balance him a lot more through this turn. So sitting up here and just steadying him a bit, slowing him and doing a better turn. Still got a bump there, but it's jumped better. Then after our jump school, we went down to Will's gallop, about a mile and an eighth, all going uphill, just not too steep of a hill. And I didn't run him full blast. I just sort of opened him up and blew him out a little bit and just sort of got him huffing and puffing a bit. He's very, very fit and prepared. So I didn't sort of need to sprint him too much, but just more stretch him out and do something a little bit different. So, like I said, tomorrow we're off to the venue and then the contests of all contests start, I think our trot ups Wednesday. And, yeah, it's very exciting.