After hip surgery in December, the rider took Connor to a prelim at Pine Top in Georgia, where the horse finished second with a 30 dressage score and clean jumping rounds. They're heading to Ocala for training with coach Peter Wild, then competing at Bruce's Field Grand Prix in late February before targeting two five-star events this year.
Chapters
This is a video for Dan and everyone at Yankee Creek Ranch. We took Connor out to the beautiful Thompson, Georgia pine top horse trails which it's actually a huge farm. I think it must be a cattle farm or something. But it's a big, big piece of property with an amazing cross country course and I like taking the top horses there just because it always sort of simulates a bit more of you know, a three day event course that's big and galloping. We put Connor in the prelim a couple reasons I think I emailed you said that you know his last event was at Maryland five star and we had an almighty crash at the water jump which was early on and it was a little bit of greenness on Connor's part. Like he, I think he misread the jump and it was a terrible jump too. It was a big wide oxer in front of a water jump at fence three which was, I don't know, in my opinion pretty dumb designing. But anyway, the point is that I was a bit worried that Connor might be, have had a bit of a fright or would be nervous of the next water jump and been schooling him a lot at home and he's been jumping the water jumps really, really well at home and then at this competition he jumped both of them. Well. I also wimped out to the prelim just because I'm just getting back to full strength. I had this hip and abductor surgery in early December and it took a bit, a bit, bit of time for me to get back feeling and you know, strong. So we put him in the open prelim. It was all in one day. Dressage, show jumping, then cross country. It's Pinetop's about an hour from where we're stabled here in Aiken. Connor was great. Like he's a, he's a bit of a spooky sharp horse especially at the beginning of the year and especially at these sort of rinky dink competitions where you know he, we woke up early, drove him out there and just hopped on him. And Conor does his best work when we're at the really big events where we are sort of there for a day or two before and we can really get him acclimatized to the, the arenas and the settings. Anyway, I was, I was very, very pleased with Connor number one. He behaved himself well. I thought he'd be more, more wild than he was. He was, he was reasonably settled jumping wise. He just felt super confident. We being the beginning of the year I, I decided to just run him at A very slow pace. So we, I think we were about 30 seconds over the time. And because his dressage and show jumping was so competitive, we finished second, which was nice. I think he scored a 30 in the dressage and the, the judging at some of these little events can be all over the shop. I thought it was a lovely test. Obviously there's bits and pieces that could be a bit better, but on another day and another judge, you would have got a 25 or even lower. But I wasn't too worried about the result this weekend. It was more a bit of a training run to make sure that Connor's feeling, feeling his best. I'm assuming he'll come out of this event just in perfect health. I'll obviously check him over pretty thoroughly tomorrow, but my plan is to actually drive him down to Ocala, Florida on Tuesday of next week and jump him in the big stadium ring and the big hotel ring on Wednesday and Thursday and do some, some big classes. Do like the meter 30. Meet my jumping coach Peter Wild down there and put Connor in around some big jumps and with a lot of atmosphere. I know these jumps are small, but he jumped the course in a really good way. He's sort of using his body, using his technique, and I was just very pleased with the way he felt in the air. He felt confident and sharp off the ground and jumping the jumps with good scope. So I think my game plan from here on onwards would be he's obviously going to go jumping in Florida next week and then on February 28th and the 1st, there's the Bruce's Field Grand Prix eventing. That's. It's a sort of a glitzy event here in Aiken and I think we'll give him a good run there. That's always an exciting contest and he should be one of the favourites to do well there, depending on our placing after the dressage at show jumping, you know, I think he'd be right in there. We could give him a good sprint around that and then after that I think we've got a. Obviously I'm very, very excited for Connor this year just because I have huge hopes and expectations for him. And our goal this year would be to do two five stars, one this spring somewhere, either Kentucky or Le Moulin. And then at the end of the year we'll, we'll go back to either Poe or Maryland, five star. So I really think he's probably going to reach like hit sort of top form this year. He's getting to the age now where he's he's getting experienced and it's really, really exciting. I think the next couple years are going to be the. Connor's sort of the one where he could really hit the ball out of the park. And obviously I think he's such a special horse that at the big events, you know, the big five stars and whatnot, we really should be aiming to be very, very competitive. We should actually be aiming to win the classes because he's, he's got it all. He's beautiful on the flat in the dressage and jumps well and then he's a great cross country horse. He's got a big stride. This was supposed to be five strides and Connor ripped across there in four. Like I said, my biggest reasoning for putting Connor in quite an easy class is there's two water jumps at this contest and both water jumps. He jumped really, really well. I was very, very pleased with the way he jumped into both water jumps. And I think this is the second water jump. We did one about five or six fences earlier. So at the moment things are looking great with Connor. His fitness is right on schedule, his soundness has been very good and I think now it's a matter of just trying to build him up and figure out which is the big events that we can aim him at. This could be a really, really exciting year for Connor. Anyway, we'll check in with you again soon and hopefully we'll take him down to Florida and jump a couple of big class. And our quitter so far they are writing with permission.
