Fedarman B - Luhmuhlen - June ‘23

This is a video for the Annie Goodwin Syndicate. Well, guys, Bruno's done it. We're officially a five star horse. And he didn't just do it, he did it. Well, obviously it was a huge trip to get in there to Germany. He traveled well. We put in a very, very good dressage test. His dressage was late Thursday afternoon and Silva and Bettina were there at the event, helping me all through the week, warming the horse up, training the horse. And funny enough, I do actually think this is now his weaker phase. We scored a 32, which was not too bad, to be honest. For his first five star to get a score of 32, I think that's quite a respectable score. We, we had a good test. There weren't any major mistakes. There was just the flying changes. I think we lost a fair few points. And the, the. Basically the. What we've just got to keep improving is the quality of his work. He's quite a long horse from head to toe and he's a little bit stiff through his body. So with Bettina and Silver, been trying to get him a little bit rounder and a little bit more through and keeping his frame up, but you can see there's a lot to like. And I keep looking at videos of Bruno every six months and every six months he's a little bit better than he was six months ago. So I think we're on the upward curve and this is about as complicated as test as he'll ever have to do in his life. This is the 5 star B test and every complicated dressage movement you can think of is all in this test. So he's a little bit green at it too. By saying that he's got plenty of quality. Like he's got good paces, but, you know, the flying change has got to get a little bit better. We've got to get slightly better angle in the half pasts and we've got a. I feel like the biggest difference between me and the. The girls that really hit it out of the park is just all the little details. The center line square halts, the perfect rein back, the transitions are all these things that I think once Bruno comes back into work that I've got to dial in on a little more. So obviously it was a, a pretty big nerve wracking sort of journey getting there. Like I, deep down after his run at Buccalow, I was sure that he was up to the task, but remember, this is as hard as it gets. This is. This competition was against the best horses and the best riders in the world and you never know if they can do it until they do it. I couldn't have been more proud of Bruno. Like I said, he got a 32 on the dressage now that left him in 17th place. So we're a little bit off the pace, but not that far away in Marx, if that makes any sense. So, you know, let's say Bruno got a 32.4. He was in 17th and Luke got a 30 and he was in ninth. So two points. There was eight placings within two points. So we're, we're close. And towards the end of this dressage test, you'll see our flying changes, which really brought our score down. We got a couple of fives and fours. So, you know, I think with six more months of training, we're going to clean all that up and we should be able to get him down into the 20s. This is the stretching circle, which Bruno loves this part, stretching the old neck out. So it was awesome seeing a number of the Annie Goodwin syndicate over there in Le Moulin and obviously, guys, I want to thank everyone for helping me with this guy. It's been an amazing journey so far and after this competition, I really think it's the beginning of an awesome five star run for Bruno. The cross country was a tough one. It was probably wasn't as big in size as Kentucky like the galloping jumps were. It's a bit of a flatter, lower, twisty course. So it was a different type of five star. It had so many three stride, corner to corner, big box to narrow offset hedges, you know, three strides and two strides and Bruno was just fabulous. He's got such a good galloping stride here and he wants to go like he's quite. You touch him with your leg and he sprints away. And he just knows his stuff now too. Like he can sort of lock onto each jump and know exactly. You know, he's pretty seasoned, you know, with corners and narrows and drops into water and he's brave. The thing that impressed me the most about Bruno this weekend was at about 3/4 of the way around, I did feel him get tired and he's never gone this far before. And he never, ever dropped off the bit or started to suck back or. I could feel him that he was struggling a bit, but he kept his ears pricked, he kept his speed up and he kept jumping in good fashion, which is a testament to his heart and bravery. He really dug deep for me and geez, he was good at all these technical stuff. This next fence was probably the Hardest fence on the course. I had trouble here on my first horse. I rode it a bit wrong, and I changed my ride in on Bruno and he nailed it, got across. That was a big three strides to that corner in the water, and Bruno just pricked his ears and flew over it. So, thinking out loud, I do believe that Bruno's come through this event in great health. You know, he was pretty tired after the cross country, but even on the first trot up on Saturday afternoon, he looked in perfect soundness. And then same again on the Sunday morning health inspection. He presented perfectly fine. So I think we should start looking at another five star at the end of the year. And part of me is tempted to go to PO in France. I think it's a course that's well suited to Bruno. It's really, really difficult show jumping, flat, twisty course like this one. But we'll make a decision on that once we get Bruno home. We'll get our vet to go over him from head to toe and just double check that everything's in good order. But my gut feeling is that he's come through this five star in great form. This is a lot of horses had trouble at this fence. The doubler hedges. Bruno nailed it. Long one stride. You can see him there just starting to labour a bit in his gallop. But the great thing about Bruno is he could maintain this stride and this energy the whole way home, which he's such a big, fast galloper that we still made the time quite comfortably. About here's two minutes to go, And he's still careful and ears are pricked. And about now I'm starting to think, geez, we're going to do this. This is a quite a long uphill here and give him a little bit of a cluck there. But it was a huge accomplishment, huge achievement getting Bruno around this, his first five star, and not just to go around clear jumping. To go under the time takes a huge amount of training and also a huge amount of heart from the horse. And I gotta tell you, Bruno pinned his ears back and jumped the course inside the time. I mean, what a moment to finish there. I. I couldn't. Couldn't believe we'd actually done it. You know, you've been talking about it, you've been dreaming about it, and to go all the way to one of the world's most competitive five stars and to make the time on your first crack was a massive achievement. So, Bruno, this is Sunday morning trot up, and the big fellow was feeling a million bucks. So the Showdown was good. I mean, in hindsight of me and Peter, I think we could have challenged him a little bit more in the warm up. He's been so reliable and so careful and so, so giving us clear round after clear round after clear round. I think if we had our time over again, we might have, should have maybe jumped one big taller vertical before we went in. He was jumping so well in the warm up that we felt at the time that we didn't need to pressure him or challenge him or anything like that. He had one rail down, which it was. You'll see it in a second. It was quite a thin red plank and I don't know if Bruno didn't see it or didn't pick up on it, but it was a bit weird that he clobbered it because he's obviously such a good jumper and he would have been so proud of this horse competing at five stars. That being said, I think we finished in eighth place. The rail we had down, which I believe is the next fence, you know, I think we would have been a five star winner, sixth place. So this rail cost us two placings, which is not too bad. Euro Commerce, Washington. So anyway, it's a bit disappointing after he hit that rail though. I mean, look at him jump now. It's unbelievable. Yeah, scope and technique. And to really push himself that hard the day before in the cross country and then to come out and jump these big jumps, huge, huge admiration for this horse. Anyway, guys, I think we'll get Bruno comes back a little bit later this week. My plan is to probably give him three weeks vacation, let him really, three or even four weeks vacation, let him really freshen up and then I think we should find two, two events, four star shorts and then maybe one more five star. Like I said before, deep down I'm leaning towards Poe just because it suits him the best. But obviously there's some. A couple other options. That being said, guys, what an amazing horse. What an amazing result to finish in eighth place in his first five star against some of the, the very, very best in the world. We've got a lot to be proud of with this horse. He's a legend and he gets a well deserved holiday. Thank you all to all of you for all your support. I really feel like there's a great team of people around Bruno and yeah, I'll be making one of those red plank rails for my jump school ring. All the best.