Commando 3, an Olympic alternate eventing horse, dominated the Stableview Horse Trials in June, blitzing the dressage phase against top national competitors and jumping clean in 84 seconds. The rider held back on cross-country in 96-degree heat to preserve fitness for a potential last-minute Olympic call-up, with plans for a Maryland five-star event later in the year.
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This is a video for Dan and everyone at Yankee Creek Ranch. We took Commando 3 down to Stableview Horse Trials to do the, the mandatory outing this weekend. It was, it's a Friday Saturday show. So we shipped him down there on, on Wednesday and sort of had a, just a nice easy, light work on Wednesday afternoon. Then Thursday we did a couple of dressage sessions and then this was the, the dressage test on Friday morning. And Connor was sensational. He, he's going so well. Obviously there was. Every top horse in the country was at Stableview because it was the Olympic team and then the reserve horses and the alternates and then the, the nations cup team which is competing in Germany, all competing in the advanced horse trials here at Stableview. And very, very proud and pleased to say Connor blitzed them all in the dressage. I feel like he's getting stronger and stronger. He's getting more educated and he's got the flamboyance that a lot of the other horses don't have, which is a huge, huge advantage. He's just going super well. Obviously with him being alternate for the Olympics, I'm sort of, it's been an interesting situation where we're, we're getting him very, very fit and training really, really hard for a competition he might not go to by saying that it would be, I've thought about it and it'd be absolutely ridiculous if for some reason he did get called up at the last minute and we didn't, we didn't have him primed and ready to rumble. So. So I'm very proud to say if they did need Conor, he's in phenomenal shape. So we had the dressage in the morning, show jumping in the afternoon. He jumped fantastic. And then on Saturday morning he did the cross country. My plan was not to push him too hard in the cross country. It was 96 degrees and you know, it's sort of more of a training event, a preparation event rather than a big competition that we needed to win. So my guess is after the dressage and show jumping he was way out in front. So if we, we wanted to go for it, it was there for the taking. But we've got a big long term picture with Connor this year and obviously our main focus is the next month before Paris if he doesn't need to run there. I think our main goal in the second half of the year would be Maryland five star. This is one of only seven five stars in the world and I think Connor's in a perfect position to really go for it there it's he's ready to make that final step up to five star and it's great prize money. It's a hugely prestigious award and I feel like this horse is in the best shape he's ever been and he's sort of seasoned now where he's ready to win a few big ones unfortunately. I'll send through some of the cross country clips later. I've only got the dressage and show jumping but this first day of competition was great. I actually met with the dressage judge after the test and I mean she couldn't say more than enough amazing things about Connor. So show jumping, I mean, it was actually his third ride of the day because I got up very early in the morning and worked him a little bit before the dressage. Then he did the dressage test and then he did the show jumping and it was a big enough track and you had to get around the course in 84 seconds. So you had to sort of ride quite fast between the fences and try and be very efficient. And Connor was great. He's turned into a top show jumping horse. I mean, initially I'm betting that he was bred to be a show jumper in Europe and somehow he found himself three day eventing. So anyway, the next couple of weeks has just continued the training at home. I think I'll take him to a meter 35 show jumping competition next week. Just a pure show jumping show and then I think he will fly to France with all the team horses on. I want to say it's July 16th and you never know what might happen. Anyway, I couldn't be more pleased with him this weekend, Dan. He's in great form, great shape and he's just a phenomenal animal.
