A rider takes his horse Bruno to the four-star short class at Morven Park near Leesburg, Virginia. Bruno nailed dressage and show jumping but spooked at the massive cross-country course designed by Derek DeGrazio, so they retired mid-course. The plan is intermediate events and brush practice before attempting a three-star later.
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This is a video intended for Tina Putter and Jake. We took Bruno down to Morven Park Horse Trials, which is in sort of around Leesburg, Virginia. We had him in sort of the hardest class there, which was the four star short. And it was the first time that we sort of took on the real big stuff. And unfortunately it was a championship type course. It was massive. What you're seeing here is the dressage, which was on Thursday, and Bruno did a great job in the dressage. We're still really getting to know each other and so I think there's still going to be a lot more improvement there. We scored a 33. We had sort of a bunch of tiny little discreet mistakes throughout the test. But all in all, I was pretty happy with him. He's a really, really good horse on the flat. He stay calm and relaxed. The next day was the show jump. We got a bit of video in the show jumping. Obviously this is his strongest phase and he didn't disappoint. He jumped unreal around the show jumping course. He's been really, really careful, jumping super high and putting the clear round. And today's cross country and sad it wasn't to be our day. Like I said before, it was a monstrous track. They basically shared the same sort of course or parts of the course as the fullstar long championship course. So the designer was the same guy from the Olympic Games, Derek DeGrazio, and he built this massive, massive course on big long distances and massive ditches and huge brush. And Bruno is a good boy. But we definitely, definitely were a little bit overwhelmed. We both were. I was a bit surprised at how cautious and worried he was about the big jumps. Like he. The hard thing with him, he's such a good jumper, is when it gets really big and wide, he just tries to jump even higher, which for cross country is obviously a hard thing. And unfortunately, I don't have the part of the course where we decided to retire, but about three quarters of the way around, up near the mansion, there was this massive brush to a corner and came around the corner and he had a bit of a spook and a shy at the brush and glanced off that. So I took a circle, jumped that, and then there was a horrendously massive corner which was also brush and it was a little bit. Got a little bit of a fright and glanced off that jump. So I decided to call it a day and retire him just because it sort of. We're both a bit discombobulated. This is a little bit disappointing just because things up until now have been just almost too perfect. He's been going really, really well. So it's obviously a sign that I've got to get to know him a bit better. You know, he's been training really well at home but I think I'm going to take him to a couple more intermediate level events and I feel like at that level Bruno' really, really comfortable and I can sort of trying to get a little bit more in sync with him. You know, the key with the cross country is to try to get him to jump across the jumps. Not, not jump really high and land steep. Haven't thought too much about it. But in three or four weeks time there's, I think three weeks time there's a Virginia horse trails and there's a lovely nice easy open intermediate there. And then if that goes well, I'll to take into tryon at the end of the year maybe in a slightly lower level just so we have a really good finish to the year three star. So this is obviously Bruno's show jumping. It'd be the best show jumping event horse I've ever ridden. He's just careful and scopey and really was phenomenal around the whole course. Been taking a couple of lessons with Peter Wild, my show jumping coach. Obviously Peter loves him just because he could be a pure show jumper, this horse. It was fun to be at this event. All of Annie's mates always come out to watch him, watch him go. Ashley and Aaron, Caitlin all stabled with Bruno and got a little bit of a fan club when we warm him up. It's quite flattering. Sadly, it's not because of me, it's because of. Because of the horse. So anyway, like I said, Bruno's in good shape. We're heading home. I go a couple easy days and then I'll. I think I'll build some big brush fences out of my cross country course and try and just get confident, get the hang of it. Here's some bits and pieces from the cross country and you saw him just chip in there. This is, this jump actually got really well. It was a big jump into the water out over the narrow, but sadly a few fence. Bruno had had enough. But anyway, this is the sport and we'll soldier on and fight back.
