Luke 140 - Great Meadow - Aug ‘22

This is a video intended for the Luke 140 syndicate. Well, guys, we're finally getting back in the swing of things with Luke. This week we took him down to the Great Meadow International. This was a big contest. I decided to run Luke in the easier class. He's in the two star short, which is sort of the equivalent of a juiced up preliminary horse trial. The dressage test was a bit harder, showjamming a little bit bigger and the cross country was slightly longer and a little bit more challenging than what you'd find in a prelim horse trial. But I thought it was perfect for Luke. It was an event that's got a little bit of atmosphere and as we all know with Luke, he's a fiery customer. So it was a perfect sort of training weekend. I took Luke down there the day before the dressage and got to ride him in the rings and got a couple of pre rides in him before this dressage test and he was very, very good. He put in a lovely test. The judges loved him. I think he, he scored a 24 which is pretty damn good. Obviously the, the main focus for Luke over the next couple of months is just building his strength and his stuff stamina and his fitness backup. After his layoff he's obviously lost, lost a little bit of condition and in my years of experience I feel like it's important to gently work your way back up to sort of peak condition. And obviously the we about three weeks ago we did a nice easy modified at New Jersey and that now we've gone up a notch to do a two star. Then I think we'll do some intermediates and then our main goal for this year is that the four star long at Tryon, that's in November, that will be perfect timing. By then we'd have plenty of gallops into the horse. He would have done four or five events plus some jumping shows and dressage shows. And I believe it won't be until that point till we have the loop that we had sort of last year and the year before. I truly think that this horse is going to be one of the great five star horses. And part of my job is to be patient and really make sure that he's got longevity at the top of the sport. So it's, it's a little bit frustrating. I know he could have participated in the bigger classes, but again, like I said, his fitness and his health and his soundness are top priority at the moment. Would be easy to get over excited and blast away again and, and re injure him. So I'm patiently waiting here. He's been training really, really well at home. Peter Wild's been sort of coming to our farm once a week lately and he's been jumping super. Actually, I might put at the end of this video a whack one of his jumping rounds on from training last week. He scored really, really well at home and obviously he's a fantastic jumper. But you know, just talking about this dressage test, I mean, Luke is a phenomenal performer. He for sure is a wild sort of fiery customer, but for some reason when he gets in that dressage ring, he just takes a breath and his enthusiasm sort of turns into extravagance and yeah, I truly think that he can mix it with any horse in the world in the dressage, especially the show jumping, which you'll see in a minute. Was yesterday. It was. He jumped a beautiful rounder. I'm glad I took him to Princeton show jumping show. I think he's been up there three or four times and to be honest, to start with, it was a disaster. He was galloping around and racing at the jumps and it was embarrassing and we just sort of got had to flush that nervous energy out of him and it was worth the effort because finally yesterday when we jumped him for the show, he was a good boy. He really jumped well and tried his best and did a perfect round by saying that it was an easy course for him. It would have been a meter 15 and Luke's jumped a meter 30 in the past. So it was easy work for Luke. And then the cross country was after that in the afternoon, the ground was quite hard. They haven't had any rain in Virginia, unfortunately. So by saying that we're in the infield of the racecourse, so the grass was good and thick. So again I went quite slow and relaxed. So Peter and Eric, Peter Wild and Eric Devander were both at the event coaching me. It's good having the. The team there and did this little inside turn here. Most horses went around that Salamander bay oxer and Luke zipped inside jumping it easily. So not that it matters, but after the show jumping we're actually leading. I think there was must have been 50 horses in the class. I think we were second or third after the dressage and then show jump clear and we were leading going into the cross country and I went, I went around like an old grandma, just looking after Luke's legs. Probably good for him too, you know, like he's a quite an aggressive horse and gets a bit keen and feisty at the jumps and making him just slow and take his time to the fences was a. You know, it's. I did it mostly for his legs and his fitness, but I think it's good for him mentally not to charge around the cross country course every time he competes. So I think I'm off to France and then off to Italy for a couple of weeks and then when I get back, we'll move Luke up to the intermediate three star level and if the ground's good, I'll do one the week after I get back and see here he gets a little bit keen way. Settle down, Luke. So I'll do an intermediate in Virginia and in September and then I'll probably take him down to the Kentucky Horse Park. There's a lovely, there's a lovely three star short there before we go to try them. Anyway, guys, hope you're all doing well. Luke's in fighting form and I'll. I'll pop a training video on as well. Hi.

Isn't he good?

Yeah.

N is going to feel love when she sees these two gray Mars online. They're like one. High level up left leg.

Better.

Slow it down, slow it down.

Whoa. Don't push. Good.

Slow it down. Whoa, Slow down.