Bruno - Bruce’s Field Grand Prix - Feb ‘23

This is a video for the Annie Goodwin Syndicate. Well, guys, Bruno took on his first sort of big challenge this year back out at the Bruce's Field Grand Prix eventing. And he didn't disappoint. He was very, very good in all three phases. This is the dressage that was on Friday morning. He was one of the last horses to go and put in a great test in the lead up to this competition. Bettina Hoy had come out from Germany and helped train me for about three days. She was good enough to actually ride Bruno one of the days and been really working hard at trying to get his frame a little bit more uphill. And I feel like he's in a much better shape. And the dressage judges agreed. I think we scored 25. There was a little bit of disagreement with the two judges. The. The European judge on the side had us on 78, and the judge at C had us on 70%. So it was a massive 8% disagreement. That being said, we got about the right score. We got a score of 25, which I feel like was a. An accurate score. I think that left us in about fifth or sixth place after the. The first phase. And, you know, there was a lot of top, top horses in there. Two thirds of the Olympic team were there, a couple of weg horses. Pretty much a lot of the. The top horses of the country came to Bruce's Field, and so we're in some pretty stif. I feel like Bruno's definitely improved since this was the same dressage test we did at Buccalow. If you remember, in, I think, November, we did this exact same test and we scored a 29. So, you know, this test was an improvement from that and a better score. The show jumping, which you'll see in a minute, was fantastic. Typical Bruno jumping, jumping to the sky and leaving all the rails up for another clear round. And then he was fantastic in the cross country. So to be honest, we couldn't have asked for too much more from him. We finished a very, very, very close third. And, you know, I think I was two seconds over the time in the cross country, which cost us second place. But. And then it was. Anyway, it was right down to the wire. Liz Halliday's horse that was at Buccalow with his Mixmaster C1. And then Doug Payne had a. His Pan American Games horse, Witness Starr finished second. We were third. And then Philip on his Olympic horse, Z, was fourth. So, yeah, like I said before, very, very good horses. And we were right in the mix. Obviously, it would have been lovely to win, but by saying that this is not the be all and end all, this is Bruno's sort of first competition for the year and he, he's definitely showing signs of brilliance. Not only did we have Bettina Hoyd there last week, we also had Peter Wild gave Bruno a light jump on Thursday. Nothing fancy, just, just to, you know, basically get him jumping in a nice shape and, well, we don't ever have to make it too tough with Bruno. It's more just exercises and getting him using his, his, his body and his technique. So we, we finished the Bruce's Field Grand Prix eventing on Saturday afternoon, and Bruno spent the night in Aiken, and then first thing Sunday morning, he traveled back to, to Pennsylvania, back to Windura. And I arrived here this morning as well. So it's great to be home. It's been a good winter down in Aiken. It was a great weather. All the horses have competed well and I think are in good shape for a fantastic season. So that was the dressage test. That was Friday morning. Then Friday evening or Friday afternoon, we show jumped. And funny enough, it didn't walk that big, but it was very, very hard to get a clear round. Bruno, I had three horses in it. Bruno was my only clear round. They all three of them jumped well, but wasn't a massive course. But it was, was very, very technical. It had every jump was sort of connected to another jump. And it's really, really handy having a top jumper like Bruno in these situations. So the course is about a meter 25. So the, the height was no problem. It was a pretty decent crowd, actually. There's beautiful weather and good crowd gathered up to watch the show jumping. And I think we're in, I want to say, sixth place after the dressage. And then after this clear round, we moved up to third. So my goals from here on out is I think the bunch of March will be just gently building Bruno's fitness up a little bit more, which I have to say, so much easier up here. Here in Pennsylvania. Just we've got much better gallops and good, good grass hills and sand tracks and whatnot, which will definitely help him pick up some fitness as we aim him towards the mighty Lamoulin. In, in June, I think the very, very beginning of April, I might do one just easy, slow intermediate at Malvern park will just be a little bit of a fitness run and a nice easy run for Bruno. Like if you think Buccalo, we went pretty quick. And again here at Bruce's Field, we spun him around Quick. So I think it's important every now and then just to give Bruno a slightly easier coast around and not make it too difficult for him every time. But he's, he's feeling confident, guys. He's, you know, to think that this was his first proper event since, since November, like, goes to show that the confidence I got in him now he'd, he didn't need a preparation run. He, he, I don't know. He's been schooling so well and training so well to enter this competition straight off the bat goes to show how much belief I've got in him now. He's definitely a big time horse and you know, he was very, very good in all three. I think the cross country course design this year was a little bit nicer actually. They built some new rings at Bruce's field and 80% of the whole course was on footing, which makes it really, really, I don't know, it's good for their legs. They're not going to slip and slide too much when they turn. And Bruno gave us a good round. I sort of set out to be competitive. I wanted to get the time, but to be honest, I also didn't want to go flat tango. I had a sense that we couldn't win being in third place. So I sort of wanted to hold a third place standing and give Bruno a good, a good run around. He trotted up nice and sound this morning after the competition. So his legs are in good nick and it was a, it was cool riding him around this great event. Obviously a lot of the, a lot of the Annie Goodwin syndicate were there cheering him on along with Annie's mum and dad. Great to see Tina and Putter there. And Bruno certainly got a fan club of all fan clubs, especially in Aiken. All of Annie's friends and former workers and Bruno's people that Bruno have met along his career were all there to cheer him on. And as you can see here, he's, I don't know, we've gelled now, we've got a great partnership and we're both sort of bursting with enthusiasm and confidence. This was one of the, probably the first hard jump on the course which was a jump big five strides down to a very skinny. And you could see what a professional Bruno is now. He just roared over that. So I think, I think it's good to be home again. Gently. Just starting to build Bruno's conditioning program up to peak fitness in June. So I think, think we'll give him a nice easy intermediate at Morven at the beginning of next month, then maybe the advanced at Fairhill. I think that would be a good event for him. And three weeks after that he'll do the four star short at the fork. Oh, no, try on four star short at Tryon, which should. He loves it down there. He runs really well down there. And after that he'll do. I think that will be his final run for Le Moulin. So it's a. It's a great. It's a great sort of list of events. All good quality events, all spaced out beautifully and he's in such good form. We could potentially miss one as well. If he. If the ground wasn't so good or he was not feeling up to it, we could miss one of these starts and still be in great shape. This was probably the hardest jump on the course. Four stride, then a steady five here. See Bruno just locking onto the jump now and flying over it. Sort of work with Bettina Hoy on two occasions this winter and I think she's back in Germany this week, so I'll probably still continue training with her a little bit virtually. I think it's important for me and Bruno to have an extra set of dressage eyes on us. Other than Silva, obviously, Silva's our main coach. But having. Having an expert like Bettina also casting her thoughts and. And ideas onto Bruno, I think can only improve us. I think we won a little bit of prize money, unfortunately, not quite as much as last year. So everyone will be receiving a. A small check in the mail, which is always nice. And really everything from here on out is going to be sort of guided towards a phenomenal result there at. The Mullan. Five star. In Stick the Caesar. Incredible galloper, actually. He's got a really big stride and even though it was his first competition of the year, you could see that he still fresh and happy and feeling good about himself after a good run. And luckily for us, we also had a helmet cam which will show you a little bit of the vision I'm or the view I'm getting when I'm riding Bruno around the course, which is cool piece of technology we have. We've got just a video camera attached to my helmet and you see his ears out in front. That's Bruno siding up the jump so you can sort of get a bit of a feel of what we went through on the course. We were blessed with just magical weather this weekend, especially Saturday, the cross country day. The day you're seeing here was just a perfect 70 degrees. Had a little bit of rain the night before, so the Footing was perfect. You know, I think obviously this event's a very sort of unusual form of the sport of eventing. I will say I do think it's a great experience for the riders and the horses. It's a fair bit of pressure. Good crowds and pretty demanding courses. Because it's only a four minute course, I think the chances of injuring the horses are quite low. Obviously there's a few twists and turns, as you saw there, but at this time of the year, it doesn't. I don't think it knocks the horses around too much, which is always my biggest concern of major competitions in the early parts of the year. Incredible horse, Bruno. Like, you can imagine how confusing or hard to understand where we're going and what jumps we're about to jump. If you could imagine Bruno here galloping down here and sort of understanding that he's got to jump over this fence and then pick up on these two jumps and then understand that that's a bounce and then zip away. And the next jump was a really, really hard jump as well. The offset brushes here and the course designer was quite mean here. He made us do a bit of a weird turn to it. You could see there wasn't much room for error as we jumped between those two fences. I'd encourage any of you guys that are thinking about coming to Lumoulan to please come. I do think we're going to be in with a good shot of being very competitive by saying that don't book your tickets just yet. As we know with horses, plans can change and at the moment everything's in good order and we look fit and healthy and informed to compete there. But we still got a couple of months of fitness, work and preparation and three more events to go through. And on top of that, my secretary Sarah is going to dig up the, the hotel that we're all staying in. It's a. It's a cute little spot, sort of 20 minutes, half an hour away from the event. But it's got a great restaurant and spa and sauna and it's, it's very German too, so we'll be sure to get everyone that information. But like I said, if there's a way of making sure that flights or reservations are refundable just in the off chance that we change our plan. But that would be unlikely. But you never know. I really feel like, especially after the last six months, me and Bruno are capable of any course now. And I think his first five star at Le Moulin's just passed perfect timing. It will be slightly less grueling than Kentucky, which is perfect for our first five star. It'll be a good course, very, very challenging show jumping, which is music to our ears with Bruno and obviously it's going to be a red hot field with some of the best in the world competing against us. But I don't know, I'm confident, especially after Bukolo and this weekend, and Bruno just seems in great, great form and great health. Things couldn't be going. He so good. He's a good boy.