Commando 3 - Kentucky Three Day Event - April ‘24 - Owner Update

This is a video for the guys at Yakey Creek Ranch in Texas. And Dan, we've had a very, very successful event with Connor. This was a big one. Connor's been in sizzling form. Obviously had a good run at StableView three weeks ago. I knew we had him very fit and we sort of basically were matched up against every top horse in America, every top horse and top rider in Americ. And they all sort of congregated at the four star short there at Kentucky saying that there was a. There was a couple of the top horses went in the five star, but the, the four star field was the. Looked to me like the, the best of the best. And Connor was great. His dressage was on Thursday afternoon. We arrived there on Monday and Connor was in great spirits the whole week. He'd been training very, very well in the dressage and it's the same test from Stableview. So it was sort of. We were pretty familiar of the parts of the test that we had to work on. The trot work was fantastic. You know, looking at this, the first half of the test, the trot work was fantastic and the scores matched it. He got some, he got some top, top scores and there wasn't too much to complain about. The flying changes were good. Now we'll see them in a bit. They still a little bit green. I feel like that's the only part of the weekend where Connor showed a little bit of greenness or inexperience. And they're nearly there and in a short period of time they'll be perfect. Judges love his frame. If you just look at the outline of the horse. They love that sort of big, nice sort of peacock neck and he's loose moving and he's a real eye catcher and his natural sort of gaits, his walk, trot can or he's sort of. He's like a, like a sprinter from the 100 meter games. He sort of struts his way around the ring and puts on a great performance. My wife flew down to help me in the dressage and then we also had our German dressage trainer Bettina Hoy there who's sort of been helping me a couple times a week virtually from Germany, coaching me. And it was good. They're both Germans and they both teamed up before at some of the big events. I felt like they did a good job coaching. It's hard to see on this TV but like there's quite a lot of atmosphere and a lot of the horses got nervous and tense in there. And one of the great Things with Connor is he sort of stays relaxed and. And doesn't sort of anticipate or get nervous in any of the movements, which is a huge attribute to a horse. I mean, these horses are so, so fit, and for them to try and stay calm and relaxed in the ring is a huge, huge bonus. With his overall leaderboard look. Looks like he's recovered really, really well from the event. It was the cross country was. It was still a short cross country by saying that we went like the clappers. So even though it was probably two and a half miles, the time on the course, I think was 6:44, 6:45. And, you know, I really sort of sprinted Bruno the whole way. And so it was quite. He was huffing and puffing by saying that he's very, very fit. Not once did he ever feel like he was getting tired or was backing off or anything like that. Within a couple of minutes of finishing, he had caught his breath and was munching on the Kentucky bluegrass. Judges love this medium trot or the extended trot. Here we've got. We got some eights and nines for that last movement. So anyway, there's so many horses in the class, they had to do the dressage over two days. And after the first day, Connor was. Was leading the class, which was good. Fortunately, the. There was a couple of fancy horses the next day that they got a little bit generous with the scoring towards the end of the class. But the good thing is we got a great score. It wasn't a perfect test. I think the canter work still needs to improve, but even when he doesn't go absolutely perfect, the judges just love him, just because of his outline and his look. He just gets top marks even when it, technically speaking, could be more correct. So basically, he had Friday off. I gave him a bit of a gallop. I tried to get a little bit of energy out of him before the cross country, so I gave him a gallop on Friday and then I actually worked him early in the morning before the class started, so that he was nice and relaxed. He wasn't too anxious at the beginning and it was very, very hard to make the time. I think only one horse in the whole class made the time and Connor was three seconds over the time, which isn't much if you think of 6 minutes 44, you know, like, I think we were 47 or something like that. And I'm sort of kicking myself a little bit. There's a couple of moments I'll show you towards the end of the course that I stayed a little wide in the turns and maybe over prepared Connor for some of the jumps, and every time you do that, it sort of costs a second or two. Saying that this was a very, very difficult course and there was a fair bit of pressure going into it, but Connor handled it so well. This next fence was the toughest fence in the course. It was a. A coffin and really a lot. A lot of horses had trouble here, and Connor hopped through it like it was nothing. He's a gutsy horse. If he sort of understands where he's supposed to go, he'll do whatever it takes to get over the jump. This one I saw a little bit of a flyer at. Good boy, Connor. He's game like that. If I saw a long stride to the fence and really take it on, he's with me every step of the way. A lot of horses would have chipped in, bumped into the jump, but not Connor. He flew. Sort of really wanted to hold my position on that water jump at the Stable View, but our only mishap was the top water jump, which you didn't get to see much on the video. Lost my position jumping in there, so I was happy he jumped in really, really confidently. The great thing with Connor, he's still a young horse. A lot of the. The bulk of the horse he was competing against this weekend were much, much older than him. And with age, they get experience and they sort of start knowing the dressage test and they know all the types of jumps and they know when to slow down for each jump. And Connor's still young. This last third of the course, he gets a bit brave on me, but he's still staying with me. He's not losing his mind. Now, this next fence, I wish I had my time over. It was supposed to be five strides. I didn't get the best jump at this Cossoquin dog, and I ended up staying a little bit wider for six strides just to make sure he jumps it good. The only problem is every stride takes a second and I don't know, looking back on it, if I would have gone in five strides there or could have just done one mark better in the dressage, we would have won the damn thing anyway. Sometimes it's good to be frustrated because it really makes you hungry for the next time out. But I would have loved to have won this one. And we were so close to winning it. Anyway, he pulled up very, very fresh after the cross country. We iced him and cooled him down. And he's a very, very healthy horse. And like I Said here the other day, underwent the vet check there for the Team USA medical staff and after doing all this competition he, he looked perfect on the examination. Now he has these two horses coming through which are just so. I don't know if he's been in a stadium of this size. There's obviously a lot of spectators, a lot of energy and he was so good. And again the time was a. Time was an issue. So it's a tricky technical course and you really had to ride efficiently and not sort of over set up from too many of the jumps. I have to say Connor was foot perfect through the whole course. Lucky. I've got very, very good coach. Between the dressage with Bettina and then the cross country with Eric Devander and then the show jumping primarily with Peter Wild who's one of the best in the business. We had a great warm up. He didn't tap any of the jumps in the warm up and we kept it pretty short. He probably jumped 10 or 15 warm up fences and he's just a naturally careful, scopey jumper. Big competition. We never really even touched or tapped into any of the fences anyway. All in all we finished in second place which is a huge accomplishment. I think I'll probably give him an easy week this week. We put a lot of pressure on him last week getting him down to Kentucky and we drilled him pretty hard. It wasn't that hard for him though, like the cross country wasn't long long. So I think he just needs to freshen up and probably give him a one week rest and then put him into some, some work and start working away at that dressage. Who knows what the future might hold. But we definitely didn't harm any of our chances with the fantastic performance this weekend. He's a fantastic horse mate. And we're still only at the very, very beginning of his career at the top level of the sport. So it's very, very exciting and the sky's the limit.