Asti’s Charming - Plantation - April ‘23

This is a video for Stirling Equestrian. Well, Katie and Alex Charm once again was a champion this weekend. We took him to just a local horse trial called Plantation Field, which is not far from where we live. So it was just 10 minutes or 15 minutes down the road. And Charmy did his. I think it was his third time at this level in the preliminary level, and he's just getting better and better. He won the dressage, which was pretty impressive. I think he got a score in the 20s. And funny enough, he is absolutely brilliant on the flat. As I've said before, he's got great movement and he sort of gets excited to a point where he starts showing off a bit, which is fantastic. And the judges love him. He's still got. He's still got a little bit of a spook in him now and then, but it's getting better and better. I feel like in the dressage at least I can sort of bend him to the inside and. And not let him get too distracted at the outside influences. I think he had one spook in the test, but that aside, his general work is very good. He's got a brilliant walk, canter and trot. He's a beautiful type and a great mover, which is fantastic. And even though he's a bit of a wild man, he's actually quite obedient in his own way. As long as you can sort of keep his focus and whatnot. He's. He's a good boy. There you go. He had one little. One little glance there. The show jumping, as you'll see in a minute, it's, unfortunately, at this event, just say it's. It's not Wellington, it's on the grass out in the field. It's a pretty flimsy course. And sadly, he. He touched one rail, which ultimately cost us the win. But, you know, I'm pretty confident in his show jumping. Last week, Eric Devander, the former US Olympic coach, was at our farm coaching away and helped me with Charm cross country. And we had a very good cross country session sort of on Wednesday of last week, which we're sort of, you know, asking Chan to do more and more exciting and complicated and technical cross country exercises and to say he loves it with his spookiness. It, you know, he always jumps the jumps, he never stops or anything. But the great thing with him is he never runs at the jumps or gets too fast to them. He sort of backs himself off, which is. It's actually quite nice to ride him. You know, the hardest horses to ride cross country are the Ones that are too brave, you know, that just run at the jump and you, you know, trying to go fast and hold them back at the same time, so. And he gave us a great cross country round yesterday around the prelim. It was a pretty tough track. It was, yeah, equally as hard as the other ones. I didn't go flat tanger on him. I sort of rode him at a speed that I thought he was comfortable at without sort of pushing him, pushing beyond that. It was quite a hilly course and funny enough, it looks nice in green here, but it needed a little bit of rain. So anyway, long story short, we finished second place, which was a great result considering how inexperienced he is at this level and also considering the fact that, you know, we didn't really have him too sharp for the show jumping or I, I didn't go too crazy fast cross country like, I think when the event's important we can definitely, definitely be ultra competitive. So I think I'm coming down to see you guys in Lexington, Kentucky in a couple weeks. I got two rides down there in Sesta Leg and Contessa, so hopefully looking forward to seeing both you. I suppose the good thing with this course is that, I mean, it was a bit spooky at this next one, but it wasn't, you know, your typical show jumping course with lots of flowers and fancy things to distract them. I probably had him, he had the next rail down, I probably had him a little bit fast and he sort of looked through part A and sort of looked down at the gate and fortunately clocked the top rail, which was a shame because he's a good jumper. Saying that in hindsight, you know, the, the jump school before we went to this competition was more focused on cross country. So sometimes that jumping them, their last jump score before a competition, cross country does take a bit of the carefulness away from them. And this has turned into Charm's favourite phase, the cross country. And he was a good boy. I feel like the run at Carolina 4, four weeks ago, I pressed him along for that one a bit and he was a fair bit fitter for this competition. At this event there's quite a lot more hill and he didn't get as winded this time, which it sort of goes to show that he's his, you know, his body slowly but surely transforming into a bit more of a galloping machine. He's quite actually fast like in his gallop. And I think I said to you on the last video, I'd love to take him to Bromont three day event which is in June. It's what they call a an fei two star long, which would be about an eight minute course. This course this weekend was just six minutes, so it'd be a couple more minutes. So by saying that we're very lucky where we are at the farm here, as we've got good galloping tracks and hills and everything Charm needs to get him really, really fit. All going well. I think I'll probably run him again in about three or four weeks, again at this level, the preliminary level, at a another event that's not far from here called Fair Hill. But at the moment, guys, he's going fantastic and he's one of the best performing horses we have in our stable. Another great result.