A rider takes her horse Contessa to Kentucky Horse Park for a three-star event three weeks before Tryon. Contessa scores 28.5 in dressage for third place, picks up time penalties on cross-country as a fitness run, and jumps clean in the stadium while the rider recovers from COVID. A new rubber Pelham bit has noticeably improved the horse's control.
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This is a video intended for Club Contessa. Well, girls, we took Contessa down to the Kentucky Horse park this weekend for a run in the FEI three star short. I picked this event because, you know, the Kentucky Horse park is obviously, it's usually at a great big open cross country course. They're good rings. We got to show jump in the main stadium. And most importantly, it was a perfect three weeks before the tryon four star long. So I thought the timing of this event was good to give her a bit of a fitness run, get her off the farm. And she went really, really well. This is the dressage test. This was on, let's see, this was Thursday morning. So we got, we arrived Wednesday. I gave her a nice ride Wednesday evening also got up early Thursday morning and schooled her a little bit before the test and she was good. She's obviously a bit of a hot, feisty character, so the relaxation's a huge thing. And stayed very, very settled throughout the test. She scored a 28.5 which left her in third place after the dressage. You know, like a lot of the events this year, I've sort of been intentionally trying to sort of protect Contessa, you know, and really just go for it at the big ones. So, you know, this is. It was a good event to try and be competitive, but not at all costs. Funny enough, Kentucky have hardly had any rain. I couldn't believe how brown it was when we arrived. Pennsylvania has been underwater the last couple of weeks and the ground's been very, very soft. And to the credit of the Kentucky event, they watered and aerated. But the. Sadly, the cross country was still a little bit hard. Saying that we've got Contessa really, really sound. I think we've figured out her feet. Her feet look great. She's obviously training on really, really good surfaces. And I've made a point this year of not running too much, you know, of just doing a couple events here and there. She thought she was doing the four star test there and tried to go walk canter. So the cross country was on on Friday and again I decided to just give her a nice gallop around, but not sort of sprinter between the jumps. So I mean, we had a boatload of time penalties. We had 13.6 time penalties, which basically sort of took us out of the chance of winning. But our big goal is to be ultra competitive in three weeks time at the four star long. You know, my long term plan is to get it at Kentucky next year. So I feel like doing try on in four weeks time will be a good run for it will be sort of probably a 10 minute, 30 or 11 minute course. And like Bromon, it would be a, you know, really challenging course. But saying that Contessa's feeling really, really good, I cross country schooled her a little bit at home at the farm on Tuesday before we came down and she just knows her stuff so well. We'll see a little bit of the cross country in a minute. I've changed a bit around to a rubber straight bar Pelham and oh man, she's so much better in it. If you remember earlier this year when she'd go cross country, she'd be fighting my hand and chucking her head around and I don't know, this rubber bit seems to. She just likes it. She just sort of holds onto it consistently. And don't get me wrong, she's still pretty bold and brave, but she just doesn't get as offended. We got a nine for that stretching circle in the canter, which was good. So basically we'll ship her back to Pennsylvania and have a easy couple of days and then probably give her a big gallop towards the end of this week and then I'll probably jump her once or twice more. She's in good shape. I feel like we've got a really fit and she just felt super confident cross country. So this was early on in the course, the water jump. You might recognize it from the five Star. And this next jump caused so much trouble. Actually fell off my other horse at this fence. This was the coffin and Contessa was beautiful through there. Just, just flowed through there beautifully. This is towards the end of the course and she's starting to get a little bit strong and a little bit keen. Oh, girl, I love riding her. She's. I don't know, like she's such a careful jumper. Even when she gets a little bit strong and bold and brave, you, she's a careful horse. You know that she's always going to sort of pat the ground and come off the fence. So a bit unusual. Usually we do show jumping before cross country and this was a unique event where we did cross country and then we had a trot up actually on Saturday morning and she trotted up beautifully. And then this was the show jumping course which glad we went actually it was in the main stadium. Obviously there wasn't anywhere near the crowds that you guys would have experienced at the the five Star. But it was nice jumping in the the big ring and she jumped magnificently. Peter Wild was kind enough to jump her for me. Last week I had Corona and was sick as a dog and Peter came to our farm and jumped all my horses. So definitely feel that she's being careful and jumping in a really good shape. Anyway, at the moment, we're having a great season, obviously with Contessa, and I think at Triumph will sort of push her a little bit more than what we did at Bromont, and hopefully we've got a horse for the five star next year.
