Long Island T - Morven Park ‘20

Hello. This is a video intended for the Long Island Tee Syndicate. We took Ludwig to Morven Park Horse Trials this weekend. This is a great event down in Virginia, obviously. We ran him a couple of weeks ago there at Plantation, just slowly around the three star. And this week we put him in the Advanced Horse Trials, which was a pretty big course. It was a long course, big jumps, obviously a harder dressage test. So the dressage test you're seeing here is the test that we did on, let's see, on Friday morning. So we got there on Thursday evening. I schooled him there when we got there and then we did this. It was the advanced B test. This is actually very similar to the five star test. It's got K and a half past four flying changes. Anyway, Ludwig did a great test, been really working hard. He's got this good extended. And then sometimes when he does the normal trot work, like you're seeing there in the shoulder in and the half past, he sort of goes to a pony trot. So we've been trying to get a little bit of that medium trot that you just saw there into just the normal trot. So he's a bit more expressive and I felt like he did really well. But this is his favourite move here. All in all, this test was very, very good. I think we've placed second. There was one mistake right at the where you go canter trot on the last centre line, then he almost trips or stumbles and then goes back to canter. So I think we got good marks for every movement in the test except for the last centre line. I'm sure we got a three or a four. Sadly, Silva's obviously been riding him a lot for us while I've been heeling up and paid dividends because Ludwig feels better than ever in the dressage. So my main goal, I think in four weeks time we're going to compete at Galloway Downs, four star long. This is a competition in Southern California, this is in Temecula, California. And this event will basically qualify him for the Olympics next year or a five star next year at Kentucky. But more than that, it's just one of those marquee events I've never. I've tried. I've ridden around it once and I failed on trading aces. So I'm actually going to take Long island tea and Luke140 over there and really give it a good crack. So you can see this is one of the Ludwig's best moves, Extended walk, which actually is a very hard move on a fiery fit. Nervous horse in the dressage. For them to actually do the trot work and then go to walk and relax without jogging is a hard thing to do. Harder than you think. Just going back to this dressage, you'll see some flying changes in a minute. There's four flying changes and in the past he's got pretty hot and excited and nervous in the flying changes and you sort of touch him with your leg and he half bucks or kicks out. So I was really, really pleased. Here's the first one here. Beautiful Ludwig. So the key is to do like 30 of them in the warm up. And the first five or six, he's really, really feisty and nervous and then he sort of gets used to them and a bit bored with them. So, yeah, got all four of them, which is they're big scoring movements in the test, I think. I sent you a video earlier this week of Ludwig's cross country school. So Eric helped me a bit cross country schooling there on Monday and then just did dressage in preparation for this event. We're really using this event as a preparation event for Galloway down. So on the cross country, I didn't go full blast. It was a long course, it was a seven minute course. So it's I think a bit over two and a half miles. And I think the event at Galloway is going to be 11 minutes, three miles, a bit longer than three miles. And the biggest thing is that Ludvik stays rideable. And I've got to say we've got some footage of his cross country coming up. He stayed really good for the bulk of the course and then just towards the end, he starts getting, especially when it's going downhill, he starts getting aggressive and strong and bidding at the jump. So it was much better than Plantation two weeks ago. I think our training with Eric on Monday really helped. A lot of slowing down and making him stop after the jumps and adding strides and stuff. Look at this change. Boom. So he's good. So I didn't go flat out. I'm still. He's fit enough. But I think if I ran him really, really fast here this weekend at Malvern Park, I think the next time you go cross country, which would be at Galloway Downs, you'd be a raving lunatic. So sort of got to ride them a little bit settled, I think especially a horse like this at the event before. Just to keep in mind that we want a horse that we can actually gallop. You'll see this is our one and only blip. Then I couldn't get him back to Trot bit annoying. He show jumped really well. So this is Friday afternoon, so we did the dressage in the morning and then in the afternoon we did the show jumping. So it's not ideal. I did a cross country school with him on Monday and then that was his only jump school this week. So it's not ideal. Usually they jump a bit better with a show jumping practice before the event. But he still jumped clear here. But it wasn't quite as awesome as Plantation. He's a little bit aggressive and he's a little bit tappy, but he. I don't know, he's careful, he's making a good shape and he's not sort of running past my hand. So I'd say, just talking about Galloway Downs, I'd say we're going to fly out there the week before. I think there's a flight from jfk. I think it stops in Louisville and then ends up in near Temecula. There's a couple horses on the flight. Philip Dutton's going this Halliday Sharp. So. And I. And I believe there's a live feed, which is going to be cool. You guys can sort of watch this event live. I feel like with this run here I've got my confidence up because he was. He was a good boy. Cross country, it was a big course, a long course, big fences. We haven't really jumped a real big course like this all year, so. And he did it well. Show jump. Beautiful. This is part of. This is the second water jump here, which was. You don't see it very well, but it was a narrow into the water, six strides to another narrow, then four long strides to another narrow, sort of about 2/3 of the way around the course. And he's pretty keen, pretty obedient. And then the next fence, you see, he starts getting a bit wild here. And then I actually lose my left stirrup. So I'm holding on for dear life. And this was supposed to be four strides and end up doing a backwards flight. So that's probably unfortunately the worst jump on my course. And this is one of the last fences which he jumped. Beautiful. So we're in good shape. I believe that he'll come through this event good and sound and I'll check in with you guys in a couple of weeks.