In this video addressed to the team at Yankee Creek Ranch, the speaker provides a comprehensive update on the event horse Connor’s recent performance at the four‑star Stableview competition, a key preparatory stop before the Kentucky Three‑Day Event in three weeks. The speaker outlines the dramatic improvement in Connor’s dressage, attributing higher scores (25.7, judges’ percentages of 75.4% and 73.1%) to intensified training with his wife Silva, virtual sessions with German dressage expert Bettina Hoy, and a revised race‑horse style diet that boosted fitness and weight. He notes lingering concentration challenges, especially when transitioning from walk to canter amid spectator distractions, and emphasizes plans to sharpen focus for the stadium setting at Kentucky. The show‑jumping round is described as a clear, powerful performance, with Connor’s large stride and natural carefulness allowing him to clear fences effortlessly, though timing of strides between jumps required careful adjustment. In cross‑country, the rider employed a fast‑pace strategy on firm, spongy ground while easing on harder sections, resulting in a 6.8‑time‑penalty (17 seconds over optimum) yet still winning the class against 45 top horses. The speaker concludes with a recovery plan—giving Connor a lighter week—to preserve his peak condition and aim for even better scores at Kentucky, expressing confidence in their serious business prospects.
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This is a video for everyone at Yankee Creek Ranch down in Dallas, Texas we had a sensational event with Connor. We took him to the four star short here at Stableview which is sort of the big lead up event towards a main goal which was is going to be Kentucky in three weeks time. And since disappointing dressage test at Bruce's Field. I've been been working hard on Connor's dressage and it's paid off. He did a fantastic dressage test. It was about 40, 45 horses in the field and some of the best horses in the country were here at Stableview and kind of blitzed them in the dressage. He got a score of 25 Dan which is you could be anywhere in the world and have a score like that and be out in front. The great news is that I still feel like there's plenty of improvement to come the next three weeks. I've obviously been working a lot with Silva, my wife, and then training virtually with our German dressage trained at Bettina Hoy. And I still feel like we could actually get a couple points better coming into Kentucky. The biggest thing is trying to really make sure that he's sort of concentrating on me. He's a high energy horse and he can get distracted a bit. So I noticed that when all the umbrellas popped out at Bruce's Field. But I got him down there a little bit earlier to the show this time and I worked him quite hard before the dressage. I rode him twice the day before and changed his diet around a bit too. He's very, very fit at the moment and we were sort of feeding him like a racehorse. And I also think it was good because he was up. He's up on his toes all the time for the galloping and jumping but it made him a little bit hot and wild in the dressage and feel like we've got his diet good now. He's got good weight and he stayed with me most of the test. You'll see this next movement. This is the, the tricky part with Conor is as we go from walk to canter here, he sort of gets distracted by a few of the spectators on the side of the ring and you can just see there's a little bit of explosiveness in there. But luckily for me I was able to sort of get his attention back in a split second. But that's going to be one of our main focuses at Kentucky. The competition ring at Kentucky is like a football stadium and there's going to be lots of spectators and cameras and sponsor signs. And flowers and a lot of things to distract Connor, but I'm ready for him. So anyway, Dan, we got. The judges were the international judges and one judge had us sort of on 75.4%. The other one had us on 73.1. And the great thing is we got a lot of, you know, they score each movement and we got a lot of nines but we also got a couple of 6.5. So we've got a. Each movement we've got to really make sure that we present him as well as we can. But we're in good shape, mate. We beat a lot of champion horses in the dressage which Conor actually hasn't done so far in our career together. Anyway, we had against some of the best event horses in the country that usually can't get beating in the dressage and kind of went out there and he blitzed the mate. We got a score of 25.7. Had a good lead coming into the show jumping. So the show jumping was Friday afternoon and Connor was, was brilliant. He's a, a very scopey jumper. Like when he jumps he's, he's got lots of power like he, he can clear the fence quite easily. He doesn't have to sounds weird. He doesn't have to try too hard. He's a. With his natural quality he just sort of springs off the ground and he's got a very big step. So it's sometimes it's a little bit hard to calculate. You know, there's certain number of strides between the jumps. If because he's got such a big, big canter stride sometimes you get a little bit close to the jumps that are related to the jumps before. So in our training we've sort of been steadying a bit early like there so that you're not too close to the next jump. But it, he was very good. It was something to remember actually. He, this was. He did the dressage in the morning and jumped in the afternoon and he actually jumped very well once you, you know, this was his sort of second workout of the day and got a little bit of his nervous energy out of him and he was fantastic. Jumped a clear round which he's very, very reliable in the show jumping. He's a, you know, naturally careful horse and doesn't matter how big the jumps are. So cross country my plan was to, you know, I haven't over campaigned him this season. I really wanted to sort of try and keep him fresh and not run him too much. But by saying that I really wanted to make the Cross country here, Count. The ground was a little bit firm, so my plan was to sort of go fast where the ground was good and the grass was thick and spongy. And then there was a couple parts of the course where it was. The ground was a bit hard and whatnot. I eased up a bit. He's a very fast horse. I think the. The part that I'll be working on in the next couple weeks is trying to go really fast and then slow down close to the fence at the moment. He's got a big stride and he can get quite strong to the jump. I got to try and eliminate the. When I downshift and slow down that he's. I'm not fighting with him too much, saying that he, he gave me a fantastic round. It doesn't get much harder than this. This was. This is about as hard as course as, you know, we've been faced with. And he made easy work of it. We had 6.8 time penalties, so I was 17 seconds over the optimum time, which honestly, it would be easy to knock out 17 seconds if I was really hunting him. I sort of don't want to risk any injury or anything like that leading up to Kentucky, but I also wanted to give him a good blowout. He's so good at these technical fences now. He just sort of looks for the jumps and these videos don't do it justice. There's not much of a gap for him to squeeze through at these accuracy fences anyway. I sort of tried to calculate I want him to win this show and I tried to sort of calculate how fast I really needed to go, but to still, still win the class. And we did it. We did it well. We actually won quite easily by a couple of points and again against 45 of the best horses in the country. It was perfect timing. So I think I'll give him a little bit of an easier week this week, let him recover well and then try and deliver this performance or hopefully a better performance at Kentucky in three weeks time. But I think he's in great shape. He's peaking at the right time and I feel like we're in serious business.
