In a personal video addressed to fellow rider Bonnie Stead, the speaker reviews the recent Fair Hill Horse Trials where their chestnut mare, Lulu, competed in advanced dressage, show jumping, and a challenging cross‑country course. The speaker notes Lulu’s strong overall showing but highlights her sensitivity and occasional nervousness, especially during dressage when she becomes “frenzied” if she doesn’t understand a movement. Progress is evident in her trot, walk, and the introduction of flying changes, though the latter still need refinement. The video credits a team of coaches—Silva (flying changes), Peter Gray (dressage), Peter Wild (overall), and Eric Devander (jump school)—for their contributions. Hard, short grass ground forced a conservative riding approach, resulting in time penalties but keeping Lulu safe. Looking ahead, the speaker plans a light training week, gallops, and additional cross‑country schooling before targeting a four‑star long competition, expressing confidence that Lulu can handle the step up. The tone is conversational, supportive, and cautiously optimistic about Lulu’s development and future prospects.
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This is a video for Bonnie Stead. Well, Bon Bon, we hope you're getting on well. We had another successful competition with Ms. Lulu. We took her to the Fairhill Horse Trials and competed around a really, really challenging advanced cross country course on the weekend. She's going really, really well. She's gone from strength to strength this year. She's obviously done two advanced horse trials and a four star short. So who would have thought? This is the dressage test that we did on Friday morning. Then on Saturday we did the show jumping and then straight to cross country. And Lulu was a legend. She really performed well in, in all three phases. She did get a little bit hot and nervous in the dressage by saying that she's, she's a bit inexperienced and she gets herself into a little bit of a frenzy just when she doesn't quite understand what we're after. And, you know, we're asking her to do movements that she's just starting to understand and when she doesn't quite get it, she gets herself into a bit of a frenzy. But the trot works good. I mean, she's not an amazing, amazing mover, but you can see with the work that we're putting in, she's actually starting to get up in the air a little bit and she's got quite a nice action. Silva's been helping me a lot, especially with the flying changes. Now we got both flying changes. They weren't great, but they were. At least we got them done. And then in the dressage, the, yeah, the trot works good and the walk, she gets a little bit feisty in and then the can of work's the hard part where she gets a bit bit keyed up by saying that It's. I've said it to you 100 times, bon, where, you know, taking her to these competitions where we ship in in the morning and we pull her off the trailer and throw a saddle on her and then expect her to do a fantastic dressage test. It's just, she's just not that sort of horse. She's a, she's a chestnut mare, she's sensitive and she's hot. And best tests have been like, at Carolina International where we get her there a day before and do the arena familiarization and really work her hard. So our next competition is an important one we're off to try on, which is a four star long, which is, it's going to be a big call, but she's, she's given me no reason why she shouldn't, shouldn't be Good there. So far this year she's been foot perfect. She's been super at the two pine tops, unbelievable at Carolina, and then also gave me a really good, good run here this weekend at Fairhill. I chose not to go fast on him, Bonnie. Just the ground was terrible. We haven't had rain for about two weeks, so it's quite hard and the grass is quite short, so. And on top of all that, she's, she is green, so I wimped out a little bit. But she, she jumped all the jumps really well and I think the last piece of the puzzle is for me to really press her fast and hard in the cross country. It's. At the moment I'm just really making sure that she understands all the questions and she's well educated and she's confident. You know, she's a, she's a careful jumper and jumps are getting really, really big now, so I think it's important that she, she thrives on confidence, which she is. She gave every fence she jumped. Well, was, was good. So this is our first flying change, Bonnie, now. Yeah, a little bit hot. Anyway, we've got to get Silver working on them, getting them a little bit smart. And so Peter Wild's been helping us. Peter Gray helped us with the dressage earlier this week, just doing the test work. And then Eric Devander gave us a fantastic jump school on, on Wednesday. So we've got top, top coaches and you know, it's been a long road to get her here, but now she's here, wasn't too bad. So we'll give her a little bit of an easy week and then probably I'm away at Kentucky next week, but the guys will probably give her a good gallop on Friday and then I'll get home and then I think we should cross country school her once or twice more and then, I mean, this try on four star log is going to be a big call for her. But she, she's up for the task. You'll see here in the show jumping, she just is a great, great jumper. She's careful, she's sharp and now, especially this year, she's confident. Like she really knows where her front toes are and she's brave to the fences. Over the years, if, if I had to fault her, she's a little bit short striding and now she's learning to sort of jump across the fences and on the cross country you don't see much of it. Today there was one or two of the lines where I decided to add one more stride sometimes when it's really long distances, I can sort of cheat a bit and curve out and add another stride, which eventually she's got to get across the big jumps on the right number. But I feel like racing her really fast on an open stride to a jump that she's not quite understanding sometimes gives her a bit of a fright. So I can sort of make that adjustment as I'm going around. I mean, you wouldn't get too much of a better jumper than this mare if you just watch her technique. She's good in front and behind and there's no need for any fancy tricks for getting a jumping. Well, she. Something inside of her loves to jump clear. And again, I just sort of rode around it at what I thought was a good pace. I mean, we had a boatload of time penalties, but there's no need to thrash around them. The ground was pretty hard, saying that I've got to eventually man up a little bit and start sprinting her a bit more at some of these events. And at the moment we're sort of on this mode of just getting us some experience and some mileage, but obviously we've got Lulu to eventually win some big classes, so that's our ultimate goal. But at the moment, Bonnie, she's impressing the hell out of me and things are looking good. Anyway, mate, I hope you're well and I look forward to seeing you in a week or two.
