Luke 140 competed in a three-day event at Morven Park, earning 31 in dressage for second place and jumping clear. The rider used it as prep for Galloway Four-Star in Temecula, a Kentucky Olympic trials qualifier, with recent schooling from Philip Dutton helping Luke tackle his longest cross-country course yet.
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Hello, everyone. This is a video intended for the Luke 140 syndicate. Luke went down to Morven park, which is a great event down in Virginia, down near Leesburg in Virginia. We got down there on Thursday and then the competition was dressage and show jumping on Friday and then the cross country was today, Saturday morning and on our way home. And Luke had a great performance. To be honest, he was. I'm glad, I'm glad we got there the day before because I gave him a ride on Thursday afternoon late and Luke thought he was at the Kentucky Derby. He's very, very fit at the moment and he's full of feet and man, he was fresh on Thursday night. And then I got up early Friday morning and gave him a good long warm up before the dressage here and it settled right down and he put in a great test. Not the best test we've ever done, but the quality of the work was good. There was little mistakes here and there. One of the biggest mistakes was actually the rider. I halted at the wrong spot on the last centre line. So I sadly got a course error right at the end which cost us two penalties, which ultimately actually stung us a bit because he finished this show in second place and I don't know, I don't want to find out if that made the difference between winning or not. But we're really using this event as a preparation event. Luke's been running well all year and our big goal is in four weeks time, the Galloway four star long in Temecula, California. This is one of the big events of the year and it's also an important event just because completing that event will qualify him for Kentucky, the Olympics, for the final stage in his career, which is the very, very top level, the five star level. It will be one to be qualified, but also we want to make sure he's ready. So he's been competing at this level all year and he's such a talented horse that he's done it pretty easy. Obviously I've had a few setbacks this year, but Silva's schooled him a lot in the dressage and I've got to say I married well because at the beginning of this year he couldn't do a flying change and now he's doing these tests with lots of flying changes, full flying changes in this test. This test is about the equivalent of the five star test. This is actually going to be a test you're seeing here today is a harder test than what he has to do at Galloway. We've got Luke very Very fit. With this competition that we're doing in, Galloway is going to be nearly four miles. It's going to be 11 minutes country. And this weekend was a longer course, which was good. It was a seven minute course. I didn't go flat out on Luke. He's still a little bit green and a little bit aggressive, especially towards the second half of the course. So I think we've got him fit. But I sort of wanted to ride this competition in a way of preparing him for Galloway. Sometimes I think if he's a flying change. Good boy, Luke. You know, sometimes if you go flat out at the event before, they're a little bit lit up at the next event. And I feel like we've got Luke in a good place. Unfortunately, this next flying change is going to be late, one stride behind. So his front legs do a change and then his hind legs do one stride after. So that was one of his mistake or my mistake. So we had a couple little blips in the test. He still did good. I think he got a 31, which is a pretty good score. He was placed second after the dressage. Luke was the very first horse to go Friday morning, 8 o' clock test. Show jumping, which you'll see next. He did really, really well. He's just a great jumper. He jumped really, really well. Good shape, good technique, really trying hard. And then the cross country obviously was for me, it was the biggest course that he's seen. It was a long course. And Luke, he's a little bit green. You'll see on the first combination, he's a little bit wiggly on the angled houses, but man, he was good the whole course. He's brave, he's scopey, he's careful, he's, he's fast. He's going to be a top, top horse. Well, he already is a top horse. This has really been his breakout year. He's very, very talented. Earlier this week, I think I sent you a video earlier this week, on Monday, Philip Dutton came over to my place and gave me a hand cross country schooling him. This was sort of the first time I'd actually cross country schooled him a couple of months. And Philip was good because he's ridden him in a few shows. For me now, he really gave me a good couple of pointers to ride him well in the cross country. But what we're seeing here is the stadium round. This was. So Friday morning was the dressage and then Friday afternoon was the show jumping. And you really have to screw up to get Luke to have A rail. He's careful, he's sharp and he's got tons of jump. He jumps really, really scopey and high. It's a great horse to ride. And I will say Luke's getting a little bit more settled. You know, those first early events I had last year, he was just, just wild in the warm up. I know him a lot better now too. Like on the. This morning before the cross country, I rode him for about half an hour, just walked, trot and canner just to try and take a bit of energy out of him. That's the key, trying to get Luke in a place where you're not fighting with him. You can sort of almost let him run. Good, good round of show jumping there. You'll see him coming to the doubler cabins here. This is about fence six and he jumped it well, but he was just, he didn't quite read it. I had to sort of get up him a little bit at the end there and he's not looking to run out. But he didn't quite understand it. And it's sort of that, you know, at the moment you feel a little bit of Luke's greenness. Like he's keen and he's fiery and he's fast. But. I've got to give him a little bit of time to read everything. I gotta say though, I felt like I was jumping the fences out of stride. Like I said before, I didn't go flat out. I was about 20 seconds over the time, which was about 10 time penalties. So the turning questions here sometimes are a little bit hard on him. This next fence is towards the end of the course and you can see him get a little bit strong and aggressive. But hey, he's a great horse. I love riding him. And I think we're in with a really good chance when it comes to Galloway in a couple of weeks time.
