In this September 2022 video, the rider (Speaker A) provides a detailed update on the mare Contessa’s recent competition and training plan. After a busy travel schedule (France, Italy), the rider and a partner named Silver returned home and gave Contessa rides to prepare for an Open Intermediate event at New Jersey Horse Park. Contessa performed strongly, earning a 24.8 in dressage (second place) and a modest 12‑penalty cross‑country round, with a new rubber straight‑bar Pelham bit that helped her respect the bit better, though it failed at the final water jump. The rider highlights Contessa’s careful jumping style, sensitivity, and the need to keep events easy for her while working on canter stride, flying changes, and overall collection. Coaching support from Eric Devander (flat work and light jumping) and Peter Wilde (jumping assistance and positive feedback) is noted. The rider emphasizes Contessa’s soundness, good leg condition, and the importance of weight and muscling for longevity. Future goals include a Kentucky Horse Park three‑day event three weeks before the Tryon Four‑Star Long in November, with the aim of winning Tryon and setting up a five‑star campaign the following year. The video ends with a hopeful tone about Contessa’s condition and upcoming plans.
Chapters
This is a video for Claude Contessa. Well, girls, we've had a whirlwind couple of weeks, France one week, Italy the next. And on Monday evening, Silver and I got home and gave Contessa some rides. And in preparation for this weekend, the New Jersey Horse park has a nice open intermediate and the timing worked out well. A big goal for the end of this year is the four star long at Tryon in November. Three weeks before that I'm going to try and run her in the Kentucky Horse Park. And then three weeks before that is this weekend where she had just a nice easy trip around the open intermediate. This level is very, very easy for her. Contessa is a very unique hors. She's very, very careful jumper. She's a real mare and quite sensitive and cautious. So I think part of the strategy and the training is, you know, trying to always find an event here or there that is very, very easy for her. And today at New Jersey Horse park it was smooth sailing for Contessa. She did a ripper of a dressage test. We finished second after the dressage on a 24.8. So that's one best ever scores. She's very, very elegant in the test and lucky for me, because it was the open intermediate level, there was no flying changes. Anyway, the changes are getting better. They're still a work in progress but you know, I'd like to think by try on at the end of the year we will have them good. But you know, come April, if we can get it to Kentucky three day event next year, hopefully, hopefully we can do beautiful flying changes with the training. Eric Devander was at our farm all week coaching me and he helped me on the flat a couple of times with Contessa and gave her a light jump one day too. And the biggest, like in the trot work, as you just saw there, like she can get 80% in the trot work and then in the canter she's got this ginormous canter stride which is great for galloping in the cross country, but it's very, very hard to collect and short. So that's sort of. So when we do our dressage training we warm up a bit and then 80% of the sessions usually concentrating on the, on the canter work. Peter Wilde was very, very kind to us. He came to my farm on, on two occasions while we're away and jumped the horses for me. And he absolutely loves Cont, one of his favorite horses to jump. And I was over there at the WEG in Italy. And Peter was, he's texting me saying that Contessa gave him the ride of the day. It was, it's really cool. So the ground, it was okay. It wasn't brilliant, to be honest. So again I. There's no real reason to go real fast at these smaller dinky events. So on the cross country I just sort of cruised around. I got picked up 12 time penalties. I actually tried a new bit in the jumping. It's a rubber straight bar Pelham, as you might have noticed. You know, when I send you videos of the cross country, Contessa gets quite strong and bargy at the jump and I just found this straight bar Pelham. She sort of respects the bit a little bit more and comes back to me. Although it stopped working right at the end of the course, she ran through it a little bit as she see at the last water jump. Contessa's been trotting up really, really sound. Legs look good. Her feet look fantastic. You know, I really now understand how important her health and her condition, her weight, her muscling and everything is for longevity. The good thing is we've pretty much got Contessa to the top of the sport now, so she doesn't need to run a whole. She's quite seasoned and experienced and anyway, it's been a while since we had a show. Bromont, I think was in June and yeah, now we're in September. So we were supposed to run a great meadow a couple of weeks ago, but the ground there was horrendous. So anyway, we waited a couple weeks. Unfortunately we had a very uncharacteristic rail in this round. I think I was a little bit laid back and casual. Contessa is so good in the show jumping. I, I didn't put too much pressure on her in the warm up, just made it nice and easy for her and just popped her around and I should have jumped one bigger OXA before I went in. That being said, every now and then it's not a bad thing for Contessa to have a rail down at these less important shows just to remind her that she's got to keep trying. I think this is the fence. I got a little too de plonked it. Anyway, bit of a shame, but like I said before, sometimes it's good for these horses to have a bit of a touch or bump into one at the, at the competitions rather than sort of lifting her off the jumps and hoiking her into the air. So I give Contessa a couple of easy days then then I think in three or four weeks time we'll ship her down to the Kentucky Horse park and and have a good and the ground should be perfect there we could maybe give her a slightly quicker run so even though I wasn't going faster I do like my new bit it's a black rubber straight bar Pelham and Contessa gets quite strong and sort of has a death grip on the bit sometime I know I just feel like in the show jumping and the cross country she's a little bit better behaved Anyway guys at the moment we're in good shape and everything's gearing towards try on four star long in November. I'd love to. I'd love to win it to be honest and I think that will set her up for a big year of five stars next year See here at the end of the course my fancy bit stopped working and deserves a little bit strong on Anyway guys hope you're all doing well catch up soon.
