Contessa - Carolina International - March ‘23

This is a video for Club Contessa. Well girls, we, our season is getting better and better with Contessa. We took her to the Carolina International Competition, Southern Pines, North Carolina this weekend and we contested the four star short which was the, the premier class. And she was horse number one first to go in the class. Some of the best horses in the country were there and Contessa put in one of her best ever performances. The dressage test that you're watching now was one of her best ever four star level tests. We scored a score of 30 which is I think at this level nearly her best result. And don't forget we had two sort of international judges that they're the judges from the five star level in the Olympic Games and whatnot. So we're good judges. Flying changes are still, they're getting better, they're still not quite there. We had a great couple of weeks of training. Been back in Pennsylvania for the last two weeks and let's see. But Eric Devander was here last week and helped us school cross country which is important part of Contessa at the moment really. She jumps all the jump. It's really working on the control and slowing down and balancing before the jumps. And I have to say our fancy new bit, cherry roller gag bit is working wonders at the moment. We had a great cross country round yesterday last week we also had well this week. Peter Wilde came up, flew up to the farm on Tuesday and show jumped all the horses in the indoor and Contessa was fantastic as ever. And we also had Bettina Hoy coach me virtually. She was sitting in her lounge room in Germany and Silva's in Wellington at the moment. So I had some dressage training from Bettina in Germany which is quite cool. Bettina rode her a little bit for me when she was out in Aiken this winter. So as predicted, Contessa's getting better the more we take her out. And the great thing with having with Carolina International we got there the day before. So I rode her actually in this ring on Wednesday afternoon and then I got up really early on Thursday morning and schooled her in this ring again. And makes a huge difference being able to just acclimatize Contessa to the surroundings and the facility. And we'll have the the same experience again at Stable View in three weeks time. Which you know, these first couple events are always. Contessa's sort of fired up and excited and those pine tops. I think we've just got to sort of understand that she's a hot, fiery lady. And she's going to be nervous at the first few shows, so. And we also, I think we've taken her to some jumping shows and some dressage shows. She's getting better and better. The big thing with all these events, I believe the big challenge for Kentucky five Star is making sure that I've sort of got a balance and control in the cross country. And that was sort of my main reason for running her so much this year, is that I really want to get to Kentucky feeling prepared. So, again, Contessa was the first to show jump. This is on Friday morning or Friday lunchtime. Peter warmed me up. Contessa's always brilliant in the show jumping. I'm very, very confident with her. And we. She had one rail down. It's a back rail of an OXA coming out of the combination. You'll see in a minute. By saying that is with warming her up and preparing her and training her with Peter, we sort of are not going to the will forcing her to jump clear. You know, she's a great careful jumper and, you know, the big thing is keeping her confident. And so I'm not too worried about her having a rail down. I feel like when it really counts, we can definitely get a clear round. So I think it's important not to insist on a clear round with all the tricks every time we jump her. She's a horse that thrives on confidence and I think I made a little bit of an error. You'll see the. The back rail come down here in the air. I turned a little bit quickly in the air and I think she just ticked it with her hind toes. So we can put some different back boots on her, maybe at a stable view just to make her kick out a little bit more behind. But in general, she jumped a really good round of show jumping. It was a tough course, too. And the most exciting thing from the weekend was this round here. This is by far our best cross country round that we've had with Contessa. It was a good course. We had good rain the night before, so the turf was good. And so the, the first third of the course you see here was quite open and I, I let it go a bit. I wanted to test this bridle and the bit out. So I sort of was going just a hair under five star pace at the first part of the course was nice and flat and open and I really felt like Contessa was listening to me and jumping a fence as well. And then the course gets a little bit tricky and twisty. And hilly. And once the course got a little bit technical and I slowed down a little bit, so we didn't go balls to the wall. Part of my goal here is to obviously keep her sound. So we're running her a little bit more than I'd like just because I think it's important to get to Kentucky feeling prepared. And I'm nervous, though, because, you know, we've run a two pinetops and then let's see, three weeks later this Carolina and then three weeks later again, stable view. And I saying that I really feel like if we are going to go to Kentucky Five Star, we've got to get there. Raring to go. She was just bringing it here and you can see that she's galloping well, but she's not sort of being silly and running at the jumps. So this line was either three strides or four strides, and Contessa zipped through there in three strides beautifully. So we shipped Contessa home. We're back in Pennsylvania Sunday. Today. I give her a couple easy days, probably a gallop up the hills later in the week, and there's a chance I might take her to an indoor show jumping show at the end of next week to see how she recovers. A little bit nervous of shipping her too much just because we've done a quite a long trip from, from Aiken to Pennsylvania and then shipped her to South Carolina, North Carolina again. And we've got to go, unfortunately, go back to Aiken again for her final preparation run. So she's got good weight on her still. But obviously with all the. The traveling we're forced to do with the competition, we just got to make sure that she doesn't get too skinny. But at the moment she looks a million dollars. She's got good muscle on her, she's in good spirits, and she's looking good and healthy. About this part of the course here, it starts getting a little bit up and down and she was a little bit spooky here at this coffin. So I've got to remember she clipped that behind. I'm going to school the coffin once or twice more before Kentucky Five Star, because there will be a. An epic coffin there. She. She's usually pretty good at them. She had a little bit of a spook. It was quite a steep downhill into the ditch there, and she just touched it behind, saying that there was two water jumps on this course and both of them were really, really big drops into water. And Contessa was super in both of them. And again, these turning questions are usually tough with her, but she, she was brilliant. So I think we went around the course, I want to say with 12 time penalties, so probably 30 seconds a little bit slow and it was intentional. Like here you could see that I could be going twice as fast there, but it's a little bit looking after her legs and then also I also mentally don't want her to, I want her to keep her within herself when we go cross country in these lead up events. I think going full blast might sort of freak her out a little bit and I'll lose control. And as you can see with this whole round here, we've got great balance, great adjustability and she's really paying attention and being a good girl. And this was a, a big, big track. So I'm thrilled with the way she ran here and she, she's getting better and better guys. So I think we're, we're in, we're in pretty good place here. Getting ready for the biggest competition of her life at Kentucky Five Star and she, it's must be six weeks away now.