Bruno’s Luhmühlen final preparations - June ‘23

This is a video for the Annie Goodwin Syndicate. Well, guys, we're putting our final preparation touches on Bruno as we're about to head off to Germany next week. I thought I'd just send you a bit of a video of him training, schooling, competing a little bit in the last couple weeks. Bruno's in fantastic form. What you're seeing here is a show jump training. This is our last jump school before we head off to, to Le Moulin. Peter Wild came to the farm and gave us a bit of a jump school and Bruno was brilliant. We really didn't do anything too fancy with him. Obviously. Bruno's a sensational jumper, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. He has been good enough not to have a pole down with us so far, so we just trying to maintain his confidence and keeping him sweet. We want him feeling brave, feeling confident. The great thing at Le Moulin is the show jumping is usually very, very tough. You can see here Bruno is absolutely flying over these fences. Eric Devander was also there at the farm. And in the yellow jacket there is Tammy Smith, keeping an eye on us. Tammy's also riding at Le Moulin on, on a mare. So she's sort of been training at our farm as well the last few weeks. And we're sort of teaming up as we head over to, to Germany. Come Wednesday, I believe the horses go to JFK airport on Wednesday and then, then they, they fly to Liaison in Belgium, land there Thursday morning, then they'll jump on a truck and then we're actually basing ourselves at Meredith Michael Beerbum's facility. I think it's in Bremen. I've never been there, but apparently it's a fantastic place for the horses to recuperate. They'll just hang out, maybe go for a hack. On Friday, I'm sending over two grooms, Stephanie and then Gemma, and they'll probably hack him for a couple of days and then I'll. I'll join Bruno on Monday with my jumping coach, Peter, to have one more jump school in Germany before we head to the event. What you're seeing here is last Thursday and Friday, Bettina Hoy came to our farm and gave us two big days of dressage. The first day was sort of more relaxation work and bending and suppling work. And then this day was the Friday work where we really started to analyze the test and concentrate on all these tiny details of keeping him straight. And here we figured out that it's better to enter the first center line on left canter. Rather than right Canter. And Bettina is full of energy. She. I think she still holds the world record for the best dressage score ever in eventing. And we're very, very lucky that she's came out to America and schooled us and trained us on all the horses. I'd like to take this moment to thank everyone on the Annie Goodwin syndicate that chipped in and sent in a donation to help with our travels. As you can imagine, guys, it's. It's a mission to get a horse and grooms and equipment and coaches to this event in Germany. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate the gestures from everyone that helped out, helping out with the expenses of our upcoming trip. I'd also like to take a moment just to say how sorry I am to hear that Tina passed away. And obviously Tina was Annie's mum and a member of the syndicate. And I really got to know Tina the last couple years thanks to Bruno and what a wonderful lady. And it was sort of heartbreaking when Pada contacted me and said that she'd passed away. She'd obviously had a few health problems and it was just devastating, devastating to hear the news by saying that me and Putter talked a bit and I think Tina's happily with Annie, reunited with her daughter and. And like I said, it was a wonderful opportunity to. To get to know Annie's mum over the last few years and it was a real privilege. Back to Bruno. We've got him very, very fit, probably fitter than ever before. Obviously the five star is a little bit longer than he's gone ever before. The jumps are going to be bigger and wider. It's going to be a flat course. I'm expecting a course similar to Buccalow, which Bruno flew around. So, I mean, we're definitely going there to try and make the time. I do think that this dressage that you're seeing here is better than we've ever had it with him. But saying that it's going to be a very, very competitive field. Some of the best horses in the world are sadly going to Lumoulin this year with the Bammington Horse Trials being a disaster. A lot of the top horses from England, instead of going to Badminton or running at Badmington, decided to go to Le Moulin. And all the ones that sort of bombed out early in the course are rerouting to Le Moulin. So poor old Bruno is up against the best of the best, Saying that I really do think he's ready for this moment in all Phases. I feel like our partnerships gelled together. He's in great form. He's very, very healthy. I've had, had the vet going over him. He had a little bit of a sore back after try on, but we did some treatments there and I don't know, he looks good. He still looks heavy to me, to be honest. I've been galloping Bruno more than I've ever galloped before. And all the other horses are trimming up and Bruno still looks a bit pudgy, but I'm not too worried. I know he's done the miles. Obviously he's a warm blood horse, so he's a bigger build and he'll probably lose a few, a few pounds on the, on the flight over. So let's see, on Saturday we galloped and then Monday, Sunday I had all the horses packing there. Out in front is Thomas Sesterleg. Second is Luke and then Q on Q is third and then our boy Bruno is fourth. And I like to mix up the training a little bit. It's sort of like an aqua tread. I also think it's, it's nice for the horse to do different activities. The day after a gallop is usually a slightly easier day. So we did 20 minutes hacking in the pond and then another hour just hacking around the farm. A bit of a recovery day, but also working some of the different muscles in the horses. And we're lucky. At Windura we've got all you can dream of for training a horse. Last week we, we met Peter Wild up in upstate New York at Sogarty's and we jumped. This is the meter 20. So obviously this is Bruno's stronger phase with the ground being really, really hard. Just because we're in the middle of a drought at the moment. We've probably been trying to keep Bruno on the footing a bit more than usual. We've been very lucky that we've been able to gallop up all weather, gallop down the road and then obviously going to these jumping shows. It's prepared footing so there's no concussion on his legs. He jumped really, really well. I mean, this meter 20 round is almost a bit of a joke. This is his warming up round and I think it's important for Bruno not we don't push him to his max every time. And we did two classes here at Sogaties. This is the meter 20 and in, in a minute you'll see the meter 30 which he, he jumped with. The show jumping at Le Moulin is going to be in obviously a smaller ring than this. And it's almost a bit easier when you're in these big rings because you just got miles and miles of space to relax them. But I think the big thing with Bruno's jumping is we know he's careful, we know he's scopey, is just continuing, encouraging him to jumping straight, trying to stay in a nice rhythm and make it easy for him, like trying to just give him a nice soft ride to every fence. So this is the meter 30, so 10.10cm higher. I'm guessing that this will be the hike for Le Morne, but probably a trickier course. Anyway, guys, it's. It's nearly crunch time. I'd like to thank everyone for all their support and again, thank you for all the kind donors that helped us out with our travel expenses. I'm looking forward to seeing a few of you over there in the Moulin. It's. It's going to be a very exciting contest and I really think Bruno is. Is ready for the challenge. Obviously, we, you know, anything can happen at this level of the sport, but he's well prepared, he's super fit, he's competing really well. He won his last start there at Tryon. It's my job just to ride him well and see where the cards fall.