Fedarman B - Tryon FEI - May ‘22

This is a video intended for the Annie Goodwin Syndicate. Well, guys, we took Bruno down to try on international three day event. This is by far our biggest test together so far. It was what they call a long format event. The long format, sort of the championship type event. It's over a much longer cross country course. The course that we rode around on Saturday was, was nearly 6,000 meters, which I don't know what that is, three and a half miles, maybe 40 jumps. And Bruno was just brilliant. Obviously what you're seeing here is the dressage on, on Friday. He did a great test. We scored a 29. It was a mistake free test. And the good news is I, I feel like there's a lot more improvement to go. It was obviously a quality field. This four star level basically qualifies you for the Olympics and the World championships and five star level. It's just one notch below the top of the sport. To be honest, going down there, I didn't quite know what to expect. I had a little bit of comfort knowing that Bruno and Annie had competed at this level before. So I knew that he could sort of do the distance. But then to do the distance at high speed and to get in there and try and be competitive is a whole different ball game. And he was so good. He really, really, really, really impressed me in all three phases. The dressage you're seeing here was Friday. He scored a 29. And that's a pretty good score. The three judges that were judging us are international judges. So at this level level, they have high qualified judges from other countries jet in. And so it's a genuine, genuine score. And to get a horse in the 20s at the FEI levels, it means it's a pretty, pretty top test. It still can get better. I feel like as our partnership develop, he's gonna get more flamboyant and I can sort of go for it a little bit more. You'll see in a moment. He's flying. Changes were good and he was sort of right in there. He was placed second after the dressage. But there are a lot of the, the top horses pretty close together in the, you know, high 20s and low 30 marks. So it was a very, very competitive field. Cross country day, you know, I know I said to you all this was a, an event where we were really going to learn something about Bruno. And initially I sort of went down there thinking, you know, a completion would sort of prove that he could get around. And then, I don't know, something inside of me. As we started the cross country, he was he was galloping so well and jumping his fences beautifully that I pushed him on and went for the optimum time of 10 minutes and 9 seconds. We actually finished in 10 minutes and 7 seconds. So 2 seconds under the time. And to, to get the time at this level, you have to, you have to go flat out and gallop all the jumps and go as quick as you can between the fences and, you know, it's 40 jumps. And I mean, I was just blown away by Bruno's bravery, his, his stamina, his speed. It was, it was awesome. It's very lucky. Obviously, Silver's been training me a lot at home in the dressage and then down at the competition. Eric Devander was there helping me warm up and walk the courses with me. And then my show jumping coach, Peter Wild, came and helped me in the show jumping. So we, we really left no stone unturned. This is a big competition, this is. This one really puts Bruno and me on the map. The US Equestrian team vetted the horse after the competition, and he's a very, very sound horse. He gave him one icing after the cross country here and trotted up beautifully. And we had a great, great vet check after the competition. So I'd say Bruno and I will appear on some sort of USEF training list now. So what you're seeing here is it's a really tough water jump and Bruno was brilliant and you can see every stride counts, you know, so I'm different to some of the lead up events where I was sort of coasting between the jumps. I was sprinting Bruno between each fence and I love this guy. His ears were pricked. This next jump was a. Most riders did it in a very short four strides and my coach Eric said to gallop it and do it in three big ones. And you can't see it on the screen there, but that's a skinny, skinny, skinny jump. And Bruno made short work of it. It's great to see a lot of the syndicate members, obviously everyone that owns a piece of Bruno scattered around the country, and it was great having a couple of the members there cheering us on on the weekend. What you're seeing here is about 3/4 away around the cross country course and you can still see that Bruno's firing. This is getting towards the end of the course and to me, just watching him there, he's just still full of energy and I feel like I had him really, really fit for this. We had him back in Pennsylvania since March, and galloping him up the hills makes a big difference. This is the, the vetting inspection on Sunday morning after the cross country and nothing beats the sound horse, guys. We gave Bruno one icing and some fluids, wrapped his legs up and put him to bed and he came out of the stall in the morning feeling, feeling fresh. One great thing about Bruno is the show jumping. Obviously any horse can have a pole down, but when I go in the show jumping on Bruno, I, I don't know, I've got a little bit of confidence and self belief and it was a tough course and to be honest, I didn't quite know how tired he'd be from the day before. He had a great warm up. Peter Wild. You know, we had a sort of a shortish warm up and Bruno was jumping his fence as well, so we didn't over jump him. And there's something in Bruno's DNA where he just wants to jump high. There's, you know, what you're seeing here, there's no fancy tricks. It's just giving him good approach to the jumps and pointing him in the right direction. He just, he jumps for fun. So anyway, guys, this is a, a big performance for Bruno. This is really going to put him on the map for the future. I'm just thrilled with his performance and to win it is a huge accomplishment. I can't thank all of you guys for joining up the syndicate. I, I know I contacted you all and told you what I thought, how good this horse I thought he was and to come out and prove it like this is a sigh of relief for me and I appreciate all you guys believing in me and believing in this great horse and I really think the sky's the limit. I think we'll get consolidated at this level for the rest of the year. And I truly think that he's going to be very, very competitive at the five star level. So we'll give Bruno a little bit of time off. There's a fun little thing at Devon. I might take him to indoor arena eventing, which he'll be really good at and I think we'll aim him and prime him up for big four star long towards the end of the year. Thanks, everyone.