In this video addressed to the owners of the Luke 140 syndicate, the speaker reviews Luke’s recent showing at the Advanced Horse Trials at New Jersey Horse Park, where he won the dressage test (score 32), jumped clear in show jumping, and completed a careful but successful cross‑country round. The commentary highlights Luke’s strong gaits, his improving flying changes (now able to execute four‑five changes across a diagonal), and his natural jumping ability. The speaker outlines the training team’s roles—Silva handling dressage, Mike overseeing fitness, and Philip Dutton riding in competition—while noting the speaker’s recent return to riding after surgery. Future goals are discussed: aiming to qualify Luke for a four‑star long format at Morven Park or Ocala by the end of the year, with planned stops at advanced events such as Millbrook, Bromont, Great Meadow, Maryland Horse Trials, and possibly Great Meadow. Logistical challenges like event cancellations, mileage building, and scheduling are acknowledged. The overall tone is informative and enthusiastic, conveying confidence in Luke’s progress and optimism about upcoming competitions.
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Hello, everyone. This is a video for the Luke 140 syndicate. All the owners of this good little horse. We're watching Philip Dutton, who rode Luke today in the Advanced Horse Trials at the New Jersey Horse Park. Bloody good. Hold there. It's got to be a nine. Anyway, we got. Philip was good enough to ride Luke for us today. Felt like Luke needs some more mileage at the advanced Horse Trials level. Our goal at the end of this year is to compete him at the four star long either at Morven park or at Ocala Horse Trials. And to do that, we need to tick off a few advanced events like this and get him qualified. And he needs a bit of mileage and a good run. We've been working very, very hard with his training. Well, I haven't been working very hard with his training. Silva's been doing a lot of the dressage and then Philip's been doing bit of the cross country and Mike, who works for me, been doing the fitness. This is actually only the third time Philip's ridden him on the flat. You know, the main objective with this event was to give him just a good run around the cross country and give him some experience and a bit of a runaround. And he went really well today. He actually won the dressage here. He got a winning test here. A score of 32 is pretty good. And then he show jumped clear and then he had such a lead that Philip actually went a little bit slow in the cross country on him just to look after Luke's legs. And he still had enough to win the class, which was really cool. Big Phil, who doesn't usually say too much, was really, really high on the horse. He thinks this is one of the best young horses that's come my way and was really, really pumped with the way the horse performed in all three. You know, Luke can. There's no question Luke can be a bit wild and difficult sometimes. But funny enough, when you get to the competition and do the dressage, he's all business. He all of a sudden settles right down and knows his job. And Philip was just. He couldn't believe how well he went considering because he can be a bit of a wild man at home and you get to the competition and he zeroed in and put perform really well. Luke's got real quality in his gaits. He's got a great trot, as we just saw, beautiful walk and great canter. And since my surgery two months ago, Silva's been doing most of the dressage work on him. And it's been A blessing in disguise really, just because at this advanced level the flying changes is so important. And to be honest, Luke didn't really have a flying change until this year and he could hardly do one of them and now he can do four or five of them across the diagonal. It's sort of with this downtime it's really given us an opportunity to have him trained up. The changes and all the movements on the flat. Luke, you'll see in a second. Luke put in a good round of show jumping. He's a great jumper and then he was fantastic in the cross country. Philip was just all praises after the cross country and said he was just magnificent around there and again we didn't push him too hard. I'm back riding which is great since I've been on the sidelines for a little bit and I had my first jump yesterday and my first competition is going to be in about three weeks time at Maryland Horse Trials and I think Luke's next run will most likely be the advanced horse trials at Millbrook. Don't quote me on that. We just make sure he comes through this all right and we've just got to have him prepared for either Bromont or Great Meadow. Four star short. You're about to see one of Luke's new tricks, the flying change. He got that beautifully. Silver will be happy with that. Earlier this week actually Peter Wilde and Eric Devander were at our farm and we jumped or Philip jumped Luke on Monday and Tuesday and just worked on his show jumping. I think he's really, really smart in all three phases, especially the dressage here and we'll see it. I think there's a flying change coming up around this corner here. They're so important these changes. As I said before, Usually we wouldn't bother with going taking the upper level horses to good change there. We usually wouldn't go to New Jersey Horse Trials, advanced maybe with like. But usually they would have run around a three day event at Bromont or something and they'd just be coming back in. So it's a bit unusual seeing all these mega horses competing at Jersey. Sounds like they built a good track. It wasn't overly tough and it was a sort of great, great experience for Luke and again jump like a little bunny rabbit here in the show jumping. He's a great jumper. If I had to fault him actually he jumps really, really high and sometimes sort of hangs up in the air. So in the jump training jumping a lot of low wider oxes just trying to get his jump leveled out and the Good thing with Luke, you can usually jump because he's so careful and scopey and talented. You usually have to screw up a bit to hit a rail. And even if you screw up a bit, Luke usually bails you out because he doesn't want to touch the jumps. But it's a wonderful feeling compared to some horses I've had in the past where you just got to ride them to absolute perfection. To get clear around Luke's, he's just a natural jumper. And then the cross country coming up, Luke was fantastic. Again, we didn't press him for the time, we just ran him around a little bit slow just to look after his legs and just use this event as a bit of an education. I think my game plan is to try and sort of run Luke about once a month. Still, all these events are getting cancelled and changing dates and we're not sure if we can go to Bromont or not. So it's sort of a. It's a tricky thing to try and get them primed up for all these events. But good thing is I'm back riding and Luke's in good form, so we'll find a way to have him ready to do really, really well at the end of the year in one of these big FEI classes. So anyway, I'll keep you all post posted and Luke will have an easy week this week and I'll be back on him and most likely be heading towards Millbrook Advanced.
