In this vlog-style update for the Annie Goodwin Syndicate, the rider (referred to as Fedarman B) reports on taking his four‑star advanced horse Bruno to an open intermediate competition at Morven Park, Virginia. The outing was deliberately designed as a low‑intensity fitness run to avoid over‑training before the season’s target event, Le Moulin, in June. Bruno performed well in dressage, winning the test after virtual coaching sessions with Bettina Hoy and in‑person assistance from Silva, who helped refine his uphill posture and overall body engagement. He also succeeded in show jumping and completed a relaxed cross‑country round, focusing on out‑of‑stride jumps and maintaining straightness. The rider reflects on the importance of balancing conditioning, confidence, and technical work, noting recent training on long‑grass turf gallops in Pennsylvania and the need to keep Bruno healthy and happy. Upcoming milestones include a more demanding Fair Hill advanced course in three weeks, a four‑star short at Tryon thereafter, and finally the Le Moulin competition in June. The update emphasizes strategic workload management, partnership development, and incremental performance improvements.
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This is a video for the Annie Goodwin Syndicate. Well, guys, we took Bruno down to Morven park in Leesburg, Virginia this morning for an open intermediate, which is actually a step down from what he's, he's used to doing. He's obviously a four star advanced horse. And my thought process was basically we went sort of flat out at, at Bulo and then I sprinted him around Bruce's field Showcase and our main goal is lamulin. And you know, he didn't really have much to do in, in March, so I thought an easier run might actually do him good just to, I don't know, make sure that we don't keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And this weekend was, was very, very laid back and easy, especially for the cross country. Bruno went around the course with his eyes shut. And I think it's important to, Bruno's been so good to us the last year of all these mega competitions to make sure that we're not, you know, that we're not at his max every time we compete him. So this weekend was a bit of a fitness run. The ground was sensational and it was a good opportunity to get him off the farm and give him a nice, nice easy run around the open intermediate there at Malvern Park. And he did a great dressage test. I've been working once a week with Bettina Hoy virtually in Germany and then Silva's also back from Wellington so she's been helping me ride him and training me in the dressage. We're basically trying to get Bruno a little bit more uphill so his, his ears and his poll are the highest point and that his chin's tucked in and it's not just his head and neck, but it's his whole body. He's, we're trying to get his sort of his hips and his hind legs to come under and he's quite a long horse and he's a little bit stiff on the flat. So we're really working on trying to engage him and compress him and it's going really well. I mean, to be quite honest, we've been focusing mostly on the advanced sort of five star, four star movements like the counter half pass and flying changes and you know, this intermediate test. I practiced a couple movements yesterday, but this, this competition, the result wasn't that important. By saying that I think we won it, which was good. He, he won the dressage and then he show jumped. Fantastic. And, and to my plan, I sort of just sort of gently cruised around the cross country, but still worked on trying to jump the fences out of stride and not ride backwards. So I think we were like 10 time penalties or something. So I feel like it was just a good, happy experience for BrunoNo. And in three weeks time, we're going to take him to Fair Hill advance, which will be a proper, proper course. And so I sort of thinking this would be a great sort of confident, easy run for him, which it was. The last three weeks have been good in Pennsylvania. It's good to be home the. It's good to be sort of at our own place again. Obviously, the conditions have been nice to us. There's been one or two really cold, miserable days, but the bulk of the days we've, you know, we've been outside, we've had Bruno out on the cross country course a couple of times, and we're starting to gallop him up the long grass turf gallops that we're very, very lucky to have in Pennsylvania, which the name of the game, I think, for Bruno is confidence for the jumping and then also fitness and really making sure that we have him slightly more fit for Le Moulin than what we did for Buccalow. And he's already nearly there. Like the events we did last year have contributed to his all round sort of strength and fitness. And we're in good shape. We're in good shape. We had a good winter. Looking back on it, we didn't do a whole heap, obviously. We did some jumping and dressage shows and then we had a good run at the, the Bruce's Field Showcase. And then this was sort of his first proper horse trial, I suppose, for the year. And I mean, it's already April, so it's. It's been a tricky winter, actually, because a lot of the other horses in the country have been going to all these big shows and going flat out and preparing for Kentucky, where our major goal is in June. So I've been very, very cautious not to push him too hard in the early parts of this year just because we want him peaking in June. And this was the show jumping, obviously. It was a bit of a rainy morning and then by the time we got to the cross country, it was beautiful. Bruno jumped fantastic again. It was a pretty easy course for him, probably about a meter 20 touch wood. We've still never to have a rail down together. Obviously the, the competitions are going to get harder and harder from here on out, so I hope we can keep our record. But Bruno is great jumping, great. Feel like he's in a good shape and we had a little bit of a Right drift that. We're always trying to straighten him up a little bit and over a slightly lower course, I feel like we've got him quite straight. You can see that he's jumping in. Good technique and jumping throughout his body and really it was easy work for. For him, which was. Is nice actually because sometimes I feel like we've got to push him and take him to his limit. But then also it can't be like that every session. So this is all in one day. So we had dressage show jumping and this was the cross country. Not long after a show jumping around and he was brilliant. Again, I didn't go flat out. It was a good fitness run. It was a pretty easy course for him. And even though we weren't at full speed, I was still trying to just practice jumping the fences out of stride and not set him up too much. And I don't know, he's. We've got a good partnership now. We know each other pretty well. I mean, to start with, he was really weird at ditches and tricanas and now, funny enough, being really aggressive to them doesn't make them better. So almost giving Bruno time to see the ditch and the tricana and it allows him just to take a breath and jump it. Where I made the mistake early on in our partnership of racing him at it and cracking him with the stick and it just. It didn't work that well. It didn't. It upset him a bit. So in three weeks time we've got a big event, big cross country course. It'll be a great fitness run at Fair Hill and then three weeks after that we're going to do the four star short at Tryon and that'll be his final run before we go to Le Moulin. He'll do some dressage and show jumping shows. But we're in good shape, guys. I feel like he's happy, he's healthy, he's in good form and we had a great performance this weekend and there's still improvement there, there's still bits and pieces that we can keep going that when we turn up in the Moulin, that we're very, very competitive because we'll be up against some top horses. But Bruno's up for the task, we're in good shape.
