Long Island T - training in Ocala - Feb ‘21 - with audio

This is a video intended for the Long Island Tea Syndicate. I've just had Ludwig down in Florida, Ocala, Florida, for about four days training with the USCF High Performance Training Squad. Went down there. And the first day we did some dressage with David o', Connor, which we'll show later in the video. And then on Tuesday and Wednesday we jumped Ludwig here with Peter wild. And this is the first day of jumping that you see. And Ludwig was quite excited and fired up. And this is an interesting exercise here. It's sort of a big jump, then a really, really steady four to that little crossrail and then again another steady forward of that plank. And Ludwig was being a bit fast and aggressive. So from memory, I think Peter had us just stop him here just to try and slow him down a bit. Ludwig's obviously a good ju. But he gets fired up and excited and starts sort of running at the jump. So this was a good warm up exercise just to sort of get him to fit four steady strides in where, you know, it's really three and a half. And Peter had us jumping through these three oxes. And you see those PVC pipes on the side as sort of V poles or guide rails. Again, it's a short two strides to a short two strides. And these V poles sort of tuck Ludwig's knees up and the oxes sort of make them jump up through their back and through their wither and sort of working on Ludwig's technique. And to be honest, the real sort of flavour of the two days of training was Ludwig's sort of control and sort of steadying down, not just Ludwig, but all the horses. I took three other horses as well, and these courses with little gymnastic exercises and thing with Ludwig, as the course keeps going, he gets more and more fired up and excited and wound up and you'll see his candida start getting a bit quick and frantic. And Peter's just trying to get us to. They're not big jumps, but like trying to slow him down and sort of relax him. And also working on the turns. Ludwig's a little bit of a pony, sort of gets quick and fast and a bit ratty here. As you can see there, the tail starts swishing. So it was an excellent couple of days of training because I really feel by the second day, which you'll see in a second, Ludwig took a breath and was sort of waiting for his fences. I think here Peter got us to repeat the last section of that course and just to see if I could just slow it all down and steady him up and relax him. And he did it actually better these last couple turns, just sort of slowing the canter down to a more balanced canter and sort of being a bit more particular through these turns and not letting Ludwig get fast. It's a beautiful farm that we're at, the Ticino Brothers, who are real estate moguls down there in Ocala, Let us keep the horses at this beautiful farm and also keep, you know, trained there in this nice ring. And see in the background, there's Eric Vander and all the USCF staff were there videoing and vetting horses and taking pictures. And we had some meetings every night. It was great. And then we sort of jumped in pairs. I paired up with Doug Payne on this one, and we put this course up with three holes now. And Ludwig actually started to get better. As the jumps get bigger, it sort of almost impresses him a bit more, and he just spends a little bit more time in the air. So it was a good session. The Land Rover's in the back there. I think the Land Rover sponsors the equestrian team, so did a bit of promotional work for Land Rover while we were there. It was actually good getting away for a couple of days. It's usually frantically busy and me and things to do, and just having four horses to work each day was good. So this is the second day. This is today's work, this is Wednesday jumping. And I thought Ludwig actually jumped better. So the work we put into him on Tuesday, I felt like maybe knocked a bit of energy out of him. And again these little bounces and those cross rails. And then Peter just had this pulling up there just to try and again start the session a little bit steady and slow with the idea that Ludwig doesn't have to go a million miles an hour. There's Philip concentrating. Look at him texting. Jeez. I think Ludwig's. He's obviously a seasoned horse. Had a great run at Galway late November. So I think my first real competition is going to be the Bruce's Field Grand Prix arena eventing in, I think it's early March. And then. And then I think I'll go down to Tryon to do the. The Tryon or the Fork Four Star short. And then I was planning to do Kentucky Five Star, but sadly we found out yesterday they cancelled it, which was horrible news, just because I've really been pumped to get Ludwig there. Anyway, I've heard rumblings that. Keep it quiet, don't tell anyone, but there's rumblings that a couple of the other competitions might step in and put up a five star in the spring, which would be heavenly, just because I do think if everything went to plan, Ludwig could. He's got a. He's got a big win in him somewhere. And obviously the. The Fairhill five star at the end of the year is definitely on our radar, but, man, it would be good to do a big five star this spring. So we're sort of getting up nearly to competition height. And again, like I said before, we're not trying to improve Ludwig's jump too much. I mean, those V poles sort of help their technique a bit, but it' whole weekend was about just more his control and steadiness and not rushing his fences. And funny if those V poles actually really do help him get up in the air. So it's something to remember with the training when I'm by myself. And he's careful in his own way. Ludwig, like, he, you know, he's not the easiest horse to jump, but he's. He's careful and he's sharp, so. So it's more just sort of keeping him chill. So this is video actually, from our first day. This is Monday. The horses shipped down there on Sunday, and then I actually took him over to David o'. Connor's. I've been working with David a bit in Aiken. He's been coming up and doing some dressage training. And obviously I worked with David o' Connor a lot when he was the team coach there through the 2013, 14, 15, 16. And I really, really love his dressage training back when we did the Pan Ams and the WEG and the Olympics. He's a masterful dressage trainer, so took the opportunity of being ocala to take some horses over and work with him. And what you see here is sort of David getting us to almost like yoga for horses, sort of bending the horses haunches to the inside and really making him collect and sit down. And, you know, it's almost rep work like you'd have at the gym, and sort of really sort of working on a bit of strength work. Ludwig's very, very good in the dressage. I mean, the big thing is that he gets a bit excited and nervous, but this training at this time of the year, we're just fine tuning and working on his muscling. We sort of started to do a bit of the canter half pass, which is a movement inside the. One of the movements inside of the dressage test that we have to. David was just working on the sort of positioning of the horse and a little bit My upper body too. I sometimes lean to the inside through these turns. And David was. He was on to me, funny enough. I haven't been at this farm for a couple of years. The last time I was there was the training camp before the Rio Olympics and that hill in the background. We had to get ready for the Rio Olympics. We galloped Blackfoot Mystery up that hill a number of times to get him fit for Rio. Kind of nice going back there. Like I said, there are plenty of good memories of being at Ms. Mars Farm down there in Ocala. Ludwig, he's got good flying changes, but man, he gets excited in them. All in all, it was great work. I was really glad I took him down there for the four or five days for training. And I really feel like we're in with a big year here. Obviously everything's in a bit of a scramble with the COVID but I'm sure Ludwig's going to pull out a couple of mega performances throughout the year. So I'm pretty excited and pumped up about that. He's in good health, he's in good shape, good spirits. He looks well. He's trotting up really well. He's condition and muscle and his feet look good. So I think this could be a great year for Long Island Tee. We've got some dressage shows, some jumping shows coming up the Bruce's Field Grand Prix of Inning, then off to the Fork, and then we'll hopefully find a five star somewhere in the world where we can really have a crack at them this year.