Luke 140 - Jersey Fresh Three Day Event - May ‘21

This is a video intended for the Luke 140 syndicate. Just got home after a mega week of eventing in New Jersey. Luke was in the premier class, which is the four star long. And this is nearly the pinnacle of the sport. It's sort of half a step or one step off the very, very highest level, which is five star. It was still the, the same. Remember we took him to Galway in California last year. It was the equivalent of that. So it was a, the big difference is that the cross country, I think three or four miles, it was a 10 minute cross country course and the show jumping was really, really hard, which was yesterday, which sort of played into our favor. So this is Thursday at the horse park and Luke did an absolute ripper of a dressage test. I can't remember his score. I think he got a 26, which is, it's a, it's a top score anywhere in the world. And, and these three judges, they're, they're international judges. They're actually the same three judges that were at the, the Land Rover Kentucky five star and actually the Swedish judge is judging at the Olympic Games. So, you know, sometimes when you get these unbelievable scores, you wonder if it's, if the judges are well, you know, well trained or whatnot. These are, I can assure you these three judges judge all around the world. So it's a real accurate sort of measure of how good Luke is. Funny horse. He was got. He got a little bit nervous at Kentucky at the Land Rover dressage test, if you remember, he jogged in his walk. So I've been practicing this movement over and over again. And Luke being a fiery horse, right about now he's starting to start to think about jogging or getting a little bit nervous or hot. And I practice this walk over and over and over again. And see there he gets a little bit funny with his mouth, but he really kept it together. So I think taking him to Kentucky, even though we didn't get to jump him, was a great week of training, just because I felt like I knew that was the same dressage test, really knew it through and through. The cross country was on Saturday, which is two days after this dressage test. So I gave him a little bit of a gallop on Friday just to blow some steam off and he was absolutely brilliant in the cross country. Now in hindsight, I wish I went a little bit quicker. Now we did win the competition, so it doesn't really matter, but I was, I think 14 or 12 or 14 seconds over the time, which I blame myself for because Luke was fit as a fiddle and he's a very fast horse. And I think I'm still sort of treating him as a little bit of a baby and setting him up a little bit early for some of the really tough combinations. But from this moment forward, he's now broken into this level of being a seasoned, experienced veteran. So I think at the next big, big, big competitions, I'm gonna sort of let him run and ride him like he's experienced horse that he. That he is obviously pretty exciting. Luke, I mean, he's obviously mega talented. And the other two good things is he's. He's young still. He's still got huge amount left in his career, and he's a very healthy horse. Touch wood. Usually after these big cross country courses, the horses are stiff and sore and sour and couldn't believe my eyes when Luke basically pranced out of the stable on Sunday morning after this cross country round as if he'd done nothing. So this is the beginning of the cross country course. Unfortunately, this is the best part of the event. We don't get much footage from it. He's a little bit bold and keen at the beginning. He was like that at the beginning parts of the course. But then as the course went on, he really settled in. This is actually, I think, the last section of the course. My groom Steph just took this video and he's got a couple of fences from home, and as you can see, the ears are still pricked. He's still tugging away at the. At the bit, but he's. He's so much more sort of experienced or seasoned than he was at Galway earlier. Late. Late last year. Like, I remember riding around Galway, and towards the end of the course, he started to get quite reckless and quite strong. And, you know, I was having trouble keeping him on his feet. And here he actually stayed sensible and calm and polite most of the way around. He got a bit keen down there, but it was a tough. It was a big field, actually. Like, there's 50 horses in it. And at the end, he actually won this competition very, very comfortably. I think we could have even had a rail and still won, which is. I don't know, it's just an awesome horse. And this is a video from. They got a trot up in front of the ground jury there on Sunday morning to prove that the horse is happy and healthy for the show jumping. You know, we iced Luke's legs a couple of times on Saturday night, and as you can see, he's fresh as a daisy. So the show jumping, it was big, it was tough, it was technical. The ground wasn't that good and the time was tight, and then we were in third place. Going into the show jumping, Luke was full of energy, so I gave him a little bit of a pre ride on Sunday morning. And Peter Wild's been helping me a lot with his jumping, and he's just been a masterful addition to Luke's training. He's really given me some keys, along with Eric de Vander on how to get the best out of Luke. And, you know, it's amazing what six months does like. He actually looks relatively easy to ride here. If you remember back at Galway, like the. The last half of the show jumping course looked like a steeplechase race. And I mean, Luke's just chilled here and he's just jumping with scope and carefulness. Look how high he gets over this next jump. So that's. That's just Luke. That's not any fancy training or special technique. It's just something inside of him just loves to jump. So I plan to give Luke just a couple easy weeks here. He's been working pretty hard this winter and spring. I mean, he looks like he could go back to work tomorrow, but I think it's. It's important to pump the brakes a little bit here and there and just give him a couple of. Couple of weeks throughout the year just to freshen up, because I think this is obviously a very, very special horse and we just got to make sure we don't get greedy. But yeah, really, I can't tell you all how happy, satisfied, excited every other word about this horse. It's a. It's really a champion horse.