Cathal Daniels commentates Luhmühlen 2023 cross-country, analyzing how the reversed course layout and early woods help horses settle. Boyd Martin rides three horses, while Annie Goodwin on Philoman B and Tim Price navigate the hilly, twisting terrain where open strides save crucial seconds.
Come from the handling that he had with them. Boys just stuck in the four.
And we know that on the program yesterday we heard that Charlie is sadly up for sale as well. And that's a really. I'm not going to go into it because I'll cry and you'll cry and we don't want. We don't want that. But it's a hard decision. But he. He's changed your life and hopefully he's going to change it again because you've got Lovely new horses. Flow 7 was second. Okay. So thank you very much to Molly. And we've now got our next guest commentator in here this morning. That is staying there. And it is Cattle Daniels. Cattle. Welcome into the hot seats.
Thank you very much.
Have you seen much of this?
I haven't walked the five star, but I've watched a few minutes of the live stream this morning.
It's been causing quite a lot of trouble out there.
Yeah. Super influential. But what is very nice. It's not just parents.
The partner. And he is going to fence three. Featherman B and Boyd Martin at this the influential water. They've jumped through there really nicely.
Really nice. Boyd on his first horse. He jumped in and landed a little bit heavy. Looked at me like he changed his mind on the distance a little bit and it just didn't work out for him on his first horse. So that was much smoother.
You were here in 2019 when you picked up your individual silver, individual bronze. The course has gone in the opposite direction. Has it got a bigger, different feel to it?
I think for sure it has a different feel. I think it's a nicer start that they're getting this way around going the opposite way. You enter the woods very early. You got up steep downhill to your first water. And if you have a horse that's a bit keen, you don't have a lot of control on what's going to happen. Whereas here the horses get to ease into the course a lot nicer and settle into whatever rhythm you want them to be in.
Yeah, they certainly do. And Philoman B was ridden to a good level by Annie Goodwin. He sadly lost a life a couple of years ago. Slightly faster. So he will go third. Moody will go second. Lloyd Martin heading towards the main. Are in a lovely long galloping stride on this horse. Isn't he? Yeah.
He's really open in front. The boy's not even asking him to lengthen. He's got a really open stride. So that'll. That'll be very advantageous on the Time and he seems to be able to pick up the jumps like that just out of that without making much effort asking him off the corner. Very straight, wasn't he?
Yeah, very good. It's great to see Boyd with three horses here. Ten horses made the trip across from the usa. Eight in the five star, two in the four star and it really is brilliant to see so many horses. We did. If you, if you're just joining us, Tim Price accuracy quite early on as well.
Yeah, I think they, they allowed three or four fences there just to get the horses out of the star box in a nice way and then the first few questions aren't so tough. So it is very nice. If you had a first five star horse or one that lacks a bit of confidence, it is really good to get them on their game and then ask the questions a little bit later on.
Well, this horse is still staying on his line and I would say that Federman B is just looking a little bit tired and it wouldn't be that surprising around this course because it's quite hilly, it's quite twisting and going in between these trees and jumping in all directions. You feel like you're in a bit of a washing machine. He has kept up a relentless gallop.
Yeah, he's really kept him forward. He's taken every fence that I've seen off that open stride and it's got him to where he is, but it might just get him home in time. He's just turned to the last fence for 12 seconds. But that was really experienced riding there because you can see the horse really, really tried for him and he didn't slow him down anywhere. He didn't have to slow him down, so he gave it a top class spin.
And that saves valuable seconds, doesn't it, when you don't have to do all of that setting up?
Yeah, for sure. Every time you take them back, it's going to take you two or three seconds to get them up into gear and those reactions delay as the course goes on, depending on the horse, obviously, but usually the less you have touched.
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