Luke 140 - Pine Top - Feb ‘23

Hello, everyone. This is a video for the Luke 140 syndicate. Well, guys, we finally got Luke to his first horse trial of the year. Took him out to Thompson, Georgia to contest the open intermediate division. This was his first sort of competition in eventing for the year. He's done one dressage show and two show jumping shows. So it was sort of good to get Luke out about before this first competition because as we saw with the video in Ocala last week, he was full of fire and feel like we got a bit of his first show nerves out of him and he was very, very well behaved here at Pinetop. This level was the open intermediate, which is. Was quite, quite easy for him, especially the dressage and show jumping. It was sort of a level or 2 lower than what he's capable. Obviously Luke's an advanced horse and competed at the four star level. We're heading for five star. So I'm really using this first event or two as a bit of a fitness run. And he was very, very impressive in all three phases. This dressage test, he finished in second place. I think it was, I don't know, probably a field of 20 horses and he scored a 29. And he was the very first horse to. This was Friday morning, then I think we did the show jumping on Friday lunchtime and yesterday Saturday we did the cross country. To me, the biggest thing obviously, as I said before in January and February, is to gently build Luke's fitness up, really make sure that we keep him nice and sound, which I think we've done a good job of. I went quite slow in the cross country yesterday and the footing was good. We had a good hit of rain. I think we finished in sixth place. So if I decided to go quick, he would have easily won the class. But guys, we're not, we're not looking to win Pinetop. We're looking, we're looking towards June in Le Moulin in Germany. So this, this event was a stepping stone event. You'll see in a moment. I actually tried a new bit on him for the show jumping. It was a hacker bit and of a snaffle in his mouth and then it had like a hackamore nose pressure device around his nose. So when he got strong, instead of just me pulling on his mouth, it sort of put a little bit of pressure on his nose. Seemed to do well by saying that it wasn't. The show jumping was quite easy for him too. It was not that big for him. I think what I'd like to do is hopefully run him at the Bruce's Field Grand Prix eventing next week without doing the cross country. So he'll do the dressage and show jumping on Friday and then Luke will probably head back to Pennsylvania actually on Sunday, which is perfect timing for us because it's time to start putting in some faster gallops on him. And the galloping available in Pennsylvania is premier and good long hills and whatnot. By saying that, they're giving me a bit of grief at Bruce's Field, saying that he's not quite qualified because he didn't do an advance last year. But the event organisers are doing me a good favour and making sure that he gets a run next week, even though we don't quite meet the qualifications. But by saying that he's only doing the combined test, so we're not running the cross country, obviously. Looking forward, I think Luke's got a massive career ahead of him still. We're right at the top of the sport at the five star level now. And now we're going to just be sort of focusing on the big, big events, hopefully around the world, starting at Le Moulin in June. To get to La Moulin we're going to do a couple of easy horse trials like this. The next one most likely will be in Virginia at Morvern park, another intermediate just to sort of blow the dust off him and a nice easy cross country round and then we'll him up to the advanced and four star level. Probably event him like once a month. What I found yesterday in the cross country is he doesn't need any more experience, he more just needs to get settled and get fit and we're in with a real chance. So I have to say going to Ocala and jumping him in those three classes last week was very beneficial because compared to the show jumping you saw at Ocala, this is a very settled horse. That's saying my groom Steph has put him on an ulcer medication, which I always thought was a load of crap. People saying their horse has got ulcers. And right at the same time as we put him on this ulcer medication, he's quieten right down. And so it might, might have. His stomach might have been unsettling him a little bit. Between last week and this week I just gave him one light cross country school. So he actually hadn't seen the show jump since we competed in Florida and he jumped like a champion. And as I said before, we've got this hack a bit which you might have a closer look as he go gallops by here. It's a sort of hackamore and a bridle put together which definitely helped him along. So this is about fence 5 or 6 on the cross country. Again I was expecting a raving lunatic Luke and he was such a good boy. These were the two corners either in five or six strides and Luke carved down that little hill in five strides. As you can see there, I'm just sort of loping along like an old grandma. It's actually one of the nicest cross country rounds I've had on him. It goes to show slightly easier course and then not pressing him for the time I sort of can keep him at a comfortable pace and just sort of popping over the jumps. And obviously once we decide to go quick on him then Luke can often get a little bit unruly. So with a bit of luck we'll see a lot of you guys hopefully next week at the Bruce's Field Grand Prix eventing. Luke will head back to the farm at Windura in Pennsylvania on Sunday and then I'll probably get started with him on Monday or Tuesday. And by the end of the week, hopefully if the conditions stay good we'll we could put some gallops into and I think we're in good shape. Feel like this winter's been productive and Luke's in Great Neck. And everything's gone to plan.

Lloyd Martin and the 12 year old Volscheiner gelding Loop 140 coming to the last two. Luke 140 is owned by the Loop 140 Syndicate of Unionville, Pennsylvania. They started cross country in second on a 29.4.