In this syndicate update, the rider‑trainer provides a detailed recap of Luke 140’s first advanced‑level competition in a long time at the Fair Hill Horse Trials, an event formerly classified as a four‑star short but run as a national advanced competition. He reviews each phase: a strong dressage test (score 28) achieved after intensive work with five‑star dressage judge Peter Gray, rider Eric Devander, and Olympian Bettina Hoy; a solid but slightly penalized show‑jumping round where Luke’s temperament required careful handling; and a cautious cross‑country ride on unusually hard ground over a seven‑minute, uphill course designed by Derek DeGrazia. The speaker emphasizes a conservative strategy to protect Luke’s soundness, noting specific jumps where Luke was quiet versus those he attacked. He reports that Luke trotted up sound after the event, resembling his pre‑Olympic condition. Looking ahead, the plan includes a four‑star short at Tryon in three weeks to secure a qualifying result, followed by the five‑star event Le Moulins in June, with a focus on adding speed and pressure while maintaining horse welfare.
Chapters
This is a video for the Luke 140 syndicate. Well, hello everyone. Luke and I just have come off a very successful weekend at the Fair Hill Horse Trials. This is actually the first advanced event Luke's done in a long time. We've been cautiously and slowly building him up to the top level of the sport and he did it easy. We took him to the, the Fairhill Horse Trials. It's a, this used to be a four star short. It's pretty much the same event as it always be. It was just called an advanced event. Just, it was a national run event rather than FEI event. But it was still a really, really tough, grueling, big hilly cross country course that worked in our favor. Building up Luke as we get him heading towards the Moreland five star. The dressage was on Friday morning and Luke went like a ripper. He's a funny horse. He has been behaving lots and lots better since the more and more work we put into him at the farm here, the weather's getting warmer as well, which settles him down a bit and we're starting to really put the gallops into him. And by saying that when he gets to the competition, he's a lot more professional than he is at home, I have to say, nearly every day at home, I'm just, he's, he's got one eye looking off to the side, finding something to spook at and he's a legend though. We go to a competition and he gets focused and he puts in a fantastic performance. In the build up for this event we had had a big week of training. Peter Gray, who was a five star dressage judge, he was also the judge at the weg, came and trained us earlier in the week. More on the test riding and Eric Devander was here helping me out with a lot of the horses and we gave Luke a jump on Wednesday and Bettina Hoy actually gave us a dressage session on Thursday, the day before the test. And he was really good. He got a score of 28 in the advanced test, which it's pretty awesome considering the amount of focus that we put into producing a test. That these sort of build up events is a lot more minimal than what we have when we really aiming in for a big contest. I mean, we worked on this test just for a couple of sessions in the build up for this event, but we've been mostly concentrating on getting him going at the five star tests. He's awesome though in the dressage and I really think that by the time Le Morlan comes Around he's going to do a humdinger of a dressage test. The show jumping was, was always brilliant. He's a funny horse. He warms up a little bit quiet and then he gets in the ring and he gets slightly explosive. As you'll see. He's a tricky ride because I'm sort of riding him a little bit quiet, expecting him to dash at the jumps and sometimes he stays quiet and then I'm a little bit away from the jump and I have to cluck him up to the jump and he shoots and flies at the fences. So he's getting better. The great thing is our major goal, which is Le Moulin is in June, so we'll actually be able to take him. Princeton in New Jersey has some fantastic high level show jumping classes and we're going to get him a little smoother there. But you can see in the dressage he's really, really well schooled and a real professional now. And we got top marks obviously for our flying changes and, and, and all of his work. So that's a plus. Cross country was. The ground was terrible. We haven't had rain for 10 days or two weeks. The ground was hard so I intentionally ran him a little bit slow. I'm always in the back of my mind trying to conserve him and really make sure that we don't injure him in the lead up and, and again the hard part with Luke is he certain jumps he stays nice and quiet for and then there's other jumps that he sees and just grabs the bit and races at the fences. So he's a, he is a tricky ride but he, he went around the course really, really well and the course was great. It was a long course, it was a seven minute course, all uphill, all big jumps designed by Derek DeGrazia who is the, you know, one of the designer of Burley in Kentucky. Like he's the man. So it was a tough, tough course. So I picked up a couple of time penalties in the show jumping again. I'm more just trying to keep him rideable. He's a very good jumper and I was a little bit upset at myself. This next line, it was oxa, Oxa and a little bit steady in six strides and he landed a bit quiet here and then at the end I had to yar him across there and made the six a bit of a speedy six which then lights Luke up a bit. But he's a great jumper. He's careful, he goes high, he knows where the top rail is. Our next competition is an important one. It's a four star short at Tryon. That's in three weeks time. We have to have a qualifying result there, which I'm sure we will to get re qualified for the five star level by saying that we also need to give him a little bit of a faster, quicker run. We've, you know, been a bit of a big baby with him for six months here, looking after him and, you know, worried about his legs and keeping him quiet and keeping him sound. But we need to put a little bit of pressure on him at Tryon in three weeks time to make sure that he's raring to go once we get to Le Moul. And I think it's important that when we get to Germany, we don't hold back. We've spent a long time getting Luke back to the pinnacle of the sport and for me it's important that there's a time to really roll our sleeves up and go for it. Anyway, guys, he trotted up really well after this event. He looks good and sound and he's sort of back to where we had him before the Olympic Games a couple of years ago. So I think we're in good.
