Fedarman B - Syndicate Report - Pau 5 Star - Oct ‘23

This is a video for the Annie Goodwin Syndicate. Hello, everyone. We've just completed one of the toughest five stars in the world with Bruno. I can't tell you how happy I am with his performance. It's obviously a huge mission to get all the way across to the south of France and compete in a very, very competitive contest. Not just competitive in the other horses that we're up against, but very competitive in the degree of difficulty that we were faced with in the. Especially with the cross country and the show jumping. Bruno seemed to travel very, very well. Many thanks to Joe Bowersox, who works for Philip Dutton, who. He actually worked for me for many years. So, Joey. So when I ever worked on the plane with Bruno and Z and sort of looked after them for a couple of days until we got there, Joe did a very good job of taking care of Bruno. He was in fantastic condition when we got there. I gave him a jump on Monday. And then this is our dressage test, which was Friday lunchtime. And to be honest, guys, Bruno stepped up a big gear. This is the same level of dressage test that he did at Le Moulin. That's the other test. So it was the same degree of difficulty, but it was test B. And as you can see here, I feel like we've got him a lot more uphill and a lot more balanced and in the trot work, we were trending right up at the leaders. He was in the 20s, getting lots of sevens and eights, but Tina Hoy was kind enough to come and to Poe and trained me for a couple of days. We'd sort of been working with Bettina virtually throughout the year with Bruno, and she works really, really well with Bruno. It's sort of her type of horse, obviously. Silva also has been sort of helping train me back in America, and sadly, she couldn't come just because of her new baby. So Bettina was there cracking the whip, and it was our best test ever, except for one glitch, which you're about to see, which is a real shame, actually. Basically every movement in the dressage test Is scored from 1 to 10. So this is the extended walk here. I think he got an 8. And each movement is, you know, usually, hopefully you get a seven or an eight. And we had one debacle in a flying change where he. I don't know if he's spooked or he got the flying change and then he got his legs all tangled up and we got a one, which, for any mathematicians out there, it just crushes your sort of score and we're in the 20s and then all of a sudden we're in the scores of 30. So it was heartbreaking. But that aside, I was actually very, very pleased with the, you know, the general test. He's a lot more uphill, he's a lot more seasoned and experienced in all the movements. And coming up here is our first flying change, which we got really, really good. I find the flying change is the hardest part with him. And he got that one perfect and then the next one we sort of just got tangled up. And yeah, like I said, it was a. It was a bit of a disaster. Not, not really a disaster in the moment, but just the disaster for the. How expensive the. The penalty was. Like, usually if you do a really bad change, they give you a five. So we got. And I put the AIDS on here and I felt like he changed his front legs and he actually changed his back legs, then he switched back and then I actually had just to pull him back to trot and it was a real bugger. Anyway, let's not get too hung up on it because the rest of the test was world class. And I believe without that mistake, we would have been hopefully on a score of about 28, 27, 28, 29 or something like that. Anyway, everyone in the field could have say, would have, could have, should have. Bit disappointing just because we'd sort of been getting that movement pretty well in the training. And I believe he just got a bit sort of confused in the moment. Yeah, the cross country, which obviously you'll see in a minute, proved to be a really, really tough day of sort of not the biggest course, like in size. Like, I actually think Maryland or Burleigh's got bigger jumps, but this, it's in a. It's in a bit of a parkland and it's a very twisty, turny course. And this French course designer makes lots and lots of skinnies and narrows and we're about halfway to go. So I got to watch sort of the first 15 horses go cross country and oh my God, it was a disaster. Like we were watching the screens and it was problem after problem, horse after horse and we're not just talking any old horses or any old riders. We were looking at the top 10 in the world, crashing and slipping and stumbling and, you know, I sort of thought to myself, alright, well, this is a great opportunity, boy, you've already done a five star at Le Moulin. Let's get out there and have a crack. And Bruno responded like a legend. He was Quite keen. At the beginning of the course, I was riding quite fast. The time was nearly impossible and Bruno's got so much speed. He's got a big stride and a big step and I have to say he was very, very fit for this. I think we'd galloped him a lot in Pennsylvania. As I said in my last videos, I was a little bit worried about his weight and by the time we got to Po, he was perfect. I think that the long travelling took a bit of weight off him too, but he was in great shape. This was a tough fence. We were supposed to go across there in three strides and he didn't come off the bank very well. So I ended up doing a short nippy four. And to Bruno's credit, man, he's a honest horse. It's hard to see on this video, but there's a very, very small window where you can sort of sneak between the flags here and Bruno just does everything in his heart to get through the flags. Coming to the first water. About now on the course, there was a rider in front of me, an Austrian rider had a terrible fall and it was at a corner and I didn't know it at the time, but she. Anyway, she fell and she was pretty hurt. So I was going to as fast as I could and little did I know that they. She demolished a jump about in 10 jumps time. So we actually got pulled up while they, they repaired the jump and actually said they had to take her to hospital. So Bruno ended up getting a really good breather and we're about three and a half minutes into the course here and just after this fence someone came out with a flag and sort of pulled us up. We had a bit confusing or just got restarted there. It's a bit confusing because no one spoke English. I had no idea what was going on. And. And then luckily there was one of the spectators that knew English and French and she said that they. There was a hold on course. So it definitely worked to our advantage. Bruno got a really good breather and you can see now he's fresh and it's almost like he's restarted the course. And look at him flying now. A lot of these combinations are really long distances and you saw there, that was the big three strides and a lot of the other horses did four strides between their. Since Bruno had his little breather there he was, ears were pricked and we're out on the racecourse here and Bruno was flying. This is a big ditch brush. And unfortunately the. The next fence was exactly where that girl flew Had a fall. It was a very delicate square turned or big Oxa to an open air corner. The only problem is this corners on these safety clips and I got in there a little bit tight and you can see Bruno landed on the back of the fence and it broke the back rail. I knew it straight away. I knew it before he even took off. Actually. We were quite deep and he jumped up really high and I don't think he realized how wide the fence was. And he came down on it on his back legs. So straight away, they penalise you 11 points and I take a bit of responsibility for it. I feel like the ox that I jumped. I jumped too fast. I wish I would have slowed down even more and sort of balanced him and tried to hold him off the corner. You know, ultimately, that moment, along with our flying change, you know, possibly cost us the win. And again, I don't want to be one of these whingers and whiners that would have, could have, should have, but I must admit, I've lied awake in bed thinking, God, if I just would have got that flying change or if I just would have handled that jump better, we'd. We would have been right in there. Anyway, the most encouraging thing about, you know, Bruno's round is that the absolute speed that he shows on the course now, there was, I think there was like 50 or 60 horses in the whole thing. No one made the time except Bruno. And, you know, we're talking the very, very best in the world. Janelle Price, Tim Price, Oliver Town End, the very, very, very best. And Bruno was the fastest horse on the track. And we made the time by six seconds, which is phenomenal. Like I said at the beginning, we did have a huge advantage of having a rest, so we sort of had a fresh horse and he never really tired around the course, but on top of that, he's jumping the fences out of speed, out of rhythm. He's got a massive stride and I had him super duper and he never came off the bridle and he's just a good boy. He sort of got his ears pricked and looking at all these tough technical fences like they're nothing. The next really tough fence on the course was this water jump that there was sort of a long way and a direct way that the alternative route wasn't that long. It was about five or six seconds longer. My plan the whole time was to go direct, but as I approached the jump, he had an almighty slip and I nearly come off him, actually. And in a split second, I changed My plan and took the long way, which I'm glad I did, because this was a really, really tough fence. Oh, just see there, he lost his grip with his back legs and twisted a little bit. He's a legend, though. Just spun around and jumped this. And again, we still got about three minutes to go and he's still full of life. So Bruno's going to fly back to America, I think, on Wednesday. My plan is to give him one month off. He's pulled up very, very sound. He's an incredibly healthy horse. I am going to take him to the New Bolton Centre and do what they call a bone scan from head to toe. In the dressage he's a little bit stiff on making the turns and obviously that one flying change is a bit uncomfortable for him. And then in the jumping he's got a little bit of a right drift and I'm going to take him to the university and get this thing called a bone scan, which I think they put all this thermonuclear stuff into him and it's nothing to do with his legs, it'd be in his back or his hips or shoulder or neck that it can sort of signify if there's any arthritis or stiffness or pain. And I feel like if we could treat something or identify something, it would make him much more comfortable for the end of next year. This was bloody tough fence. This was a lot of trouble here and Bruno nearly thought about running out and at the last minute realised that he had to go through and about. Now I could hear the commentator in English saying that Boyd Martin and Fetterman B are looking like they might make the time. And I gave him a bit of a spur and he had plenty of juice left at the end and ears were pricked. I was seeing really good distances. I wasn't having to set him up too much for the jumps and he was flying over them and a lot of the horses were knackered at this part of the course. I mean, look at this guy. What a legend. And only horse to make time. Six seconds under the time and plenty left at the end, which is very, very encouraging. You know, this is his fourth three day event in a row where he's made time. If you think back to Tryon four Star long and Bukalow four star long last year made the time at both of them and now Le Moulin five star and Poe five star. I mean, it's an incredible record. So this is the health inspection on Sunday morning. Big crowd there and Bruno had a great Night's sleep. I actually gave him a little bit of flat work riding in the morning just to loosen his muscles up. But he came through the event very, very healthy. It was tough on their legs just because it was so twisty and turny, but touch wood, Bruno's a very sound horse and I don't know, he felt fantastic coming into the show jumping. Peter Wilde was very, very good to us. He flew over to France, he's a legend. He's obviously one of the best riders in the world back in his day. And he sacrifices so much helping me and a couple of the other event riders. And he's in just an unbelievable category of rider, trainer, coach. The great thing is Bruno obviously is just a phenomenal jumper. We didn't do that many warm up jumps. We walked the course two or three times, had a plan and we probably jumped 10 warm up jumps and he was flying. He went in and our first jump was a little bit rough. I wanted to catch the first jump a little bit open and he was sort of looking off into the crowd and we had a bit of an awkward jump, but it almost woke him up, woke us both up for the round. The Poe show jumping is probably the hardest show jumping in all the five stars. The statistic guys say it's hardest to get a clear round in any five star at pose. But this is Bruno's strength. It's so fun riding him. He's just pings off the floor. It's great also having a few of the syndicate there cheering us on. Pada was there, Annie's father, Tammy was there. It was great having a bit of a team there and it was awesome that Bruno went so well. Anyway guys, like I said, he'll be back in America at the end of the week. Give him a bit of time off and then we'll start rolling our sleeves up for next year. I think, you know, coming into next year we've really got to just think of, okay, the jumping and the cross country is an A. And I've got to stay relentless about getting this dressage down, you know, hopefully to the mid-20s, which I think he's very, very capable of. And you know, he's still young as a five star horse. He's had a phenomenal year. Two top ten finishes in five stars. I'm not sure there's any other horse in America that's done that. I don't know, I'm just got my tail up. I'm very, very pleased and a little bit, a little bit frustrated that we weren't on that podium at the end of this event, but the reality is he, he went very, very well. And big thanks to Steph Simpson, who is Bruno's handler. She loves this horse to bits. And at the end of the competition, she sent me this video of him enjoying a bit of a roll and a nibble before he hopped back on the truck to head back towards the the airport. But thank you all for your support. What a wonderful year. Really appreciate everyone getting behind this horse. And man, who knows what could happen next year.