Miss Lulu finished third at Fair Hill advanced, with a clean cross-country round but one rail down in the show-jumping. She's galloping every 4-5 days and her flying changes are nearly automatic now, thanks to Silva riding her 2-3 times a week. Next up: Bromont four-star and Devon arena eventing.
Chapters
This is a video for Bonnie Stead. Well, bon bon. We took Ms. Lulu herself to the Fairhill Horse Trials yesterday. She, she was in the advanced and she went pretty good. She was very well behaved in the dressage. Obviously she can get pretty hot in the dressage and you'll see in a minute there's a fair bit of walk in this particular dressage test that seem to take forever. She showed up beautifully and she was very, very good cross country, mate. So we're, we're heading towards Bromont four star long and in a week's time we're actually going to do the Devon arena eventing as well. So she's got a fair bit on her schedule, mate. She's been working away very well, she's been very, very sound and my dear wife Silva has been doing an incredible job with her flying changes. Silver's riding her two or three times a week and you'll see in a minute the flying changes are nearly automatic which has been a long challenge with her. But anyway, she's been, I feel like we've got a very fit coming into the three day event. We've been galloping her every four or five days and like I said before, she's been very, very healthy. Anyway, mate, it looks like we're going to be coming back down to Aiken in a few weeks too. It should be good to see her. They're doing a competition for all the potential Olympic horses at Stableview. So we'll be down, down back in your neck of the woods for couple of days next month, I suppose. So I think they're going to announce the Olympic team just before that and then all the Olympic horses and alternates have to go down to back down to South Carolina to have a zip around the mighty stable view anyway with Lulu, she's, she's pretty good. I mean in the cross country there's a, there's a little bit of footage to show you today. She's got a bit of a short stride and she's a very, very careful jumper. So that's been our, sort of, our big challenge in the cross country is to make sure that she sort of jumping across the fences and not jumping too high sometimes. She adds in a little extra stride now and then. So this is the dreaded walk that the dressage judge was pretty generous to me actually because as you can see there, she got a little bit tense and nervous and yeah, this walk seems to take forever. So anyway, going back to the cross country, like I said, it's, it's A bit of a challenge with it just because she's a little bit. Sort of got a pony stride and she jumps really, really high and not across that much. So in the cross country, always trying to find nice forward distances to the jumps and trying to, trying to not let her chip in an extra stride here and there, but it's sort of the way she goes a little bit. I think Peter Wilde's also coming back to the farm once or twice before Bromont to give us a hand in the show jumping. And yeah, Silver's. Look at that flying change. Bonnie. Yeah, Silver's been. She loves. She likes riding a witch, actually. I don't know, she's. She's. Even though she's hot and she's a little bit small, she is actually pretty nice to ride. So I was away in England last week doing badminton and Silver schooled her three times while I was overseas and did a top job. Actually got two of her babies in at the stable at the moment. They're both one year old, they're both by Harold3 and they're, they're not too bad. They're a little bit small. Harold 3's a fair bit of thoroughbred, so they should be a more thoroughbredy version of Lulu. Sure they'll be a little bit hot and spicy like Lulu too. Anyway, all in all, that was not a bad test, just considering, you know, just turning up and pulling off the trailer. She's very good in the, in the show jumping, unfortunately. We had the last fence down, started pouring with rain just as we started show jumping. But we put some decent studs in her and she jumped pretty well. She's a, yeah, naturally careful jumper. There's a bit of a twisty turny course and anyway, I was quite pleased with the way she show jumped and then she, like I said, she was pretty good around the cross country. All in all, we finished in third place after the, you know, after the whole, whole event, which wasn't too bad just considering we weren't going flat out or anything like that. So it was respectable, mate, respectable. 30 in the dressage. We had one pole down and then clear cross country and a little bit of time penalties, unfortunately. Well, you're not quite going to see our last fence. Oh, it's that the yellow and black rail just popped down there, got there a little bit flat. It's a shame actually. We would have finished second without that pole down here. We had a couple snippets of the cross country anyway, mate, we're in good shape and I feel like we're in with a sort of reasonably good chance there at Bromont. We'll head up there and give it our best mate. Anyway, I hope you're doing well and I'm looking forward to seeing you in a couple weeks. Bon. Take care.
