In this video addressed to the horse’s owner, Bonnie Stead, the speaker provides a detailed report on Ms. Lulu’s recent outing at the Morven Park Horse Trials. The update covers the three competition phases—dressage, show jumping, and cross‑country—highlighting Lulu’s strengths (confidence in jumping, quickness on cross‑country) and areas needing work (green movements in dressage, occasional over‑thinking). The speaker notes recent training experiences, including a prior attempt at Pinetop, a jump session at the World Equestrian Centre in Wilmington, Ohio, and flat‑work coaching from Eric Devander. A concrete training plan is outlined: continue entering intermediate‑level events, focus on dressage fundamentals (shoulder‑in, haunches‑in, canter work), maintain lightness in the hand for cross‑country, and avoid over‑exertion. The tone is informal and supportive, expressing optimism about Lulu’s progress and confidence that she will be ready for higher‑level competitions within the next six months.
Chapters
This is a video intended for Bonnie Stead, the mighty owner of Ms. Lulu herself. Well, Bon, we took Ms. Lulu down to Morven Park Horse Trials this morning. I actually went down in a car last night, walked the courses and then we had a very, very early morning ride. Lulu was very good in all three phases. This is sort of her second attempt at the intermediate level. Obviously our first attempt didn't go so well at Pinetop a couple but she was much, much better this weekend. She was super confident in the jumping, jumped the show jumping well and the cross country, so that was great. And the dressage as usual is a work in progress. She is getting better. She's a little bit hot and spicy, especially at these events where you sort of just arrive the morning of the show. I actually gave her a bit of a pre ride first thing in the morning before the competition started, just for 20 minutes. Just get a bit of energy out of her. And I have to say she's sort of 50% of it. She's a bit hot and gets nervous in competitions and then the other 50%, she's still very, very green at these new movements, especially in the canter work. She's a good girl but she sometimes over tries or overthinks things. Then in the walk she gets a little bit hot as. So anyway, what my game plan is, Bon, is to just gently keep chipping away at these intermediate horse trials and we'll do a three star short coming up somewhere soon. And I think without running her legs off, she just gets needs to get confident and relaxed at this level and she's just got to understand what a shoulder in is and haunches in and canter, walk, walk, canter, yada, yada yada. Now the best moment dressage test is about to come up here. We got a nine for our halter. Bloody good hole. I would have given it a 9.5. The extended walk was good here. Her partner, she knows the can is coming up. So as I shorten the reins up from extended walk to medium walk, she started anticipating a can of work for sure. We took her to Ohio jumping two weeks ago to the World Equestrian Centre in Wilmington, Ohio. And we jumped, let's see, just three or four rounds there and for sure that really helped her actually today in the show jumping, which you'll see in a moment, she just jumped really confident, really worked well. We see her starting to anticipate the the canner, unfortunately, tiny little bubbles like that gives us a fall for our medium walk, which crushes our score sadly. Had Eric Devander helping me earlier this week on Monday and Tuesday. We did flat work on Monday and then he helped me cross country school her on, on. She was awesome. Now this is supposed to be a can of walk and Lulu thinks she's doing the pre limb test and can of trot. So that was a, again a green mistake. Unfortunately the judges gave us a bit of a harsh mark there as well. I think I'll try and find another sort of straightforwardish intermediate. Hopefully three or four weeks time. She's trotting up really well and she's been very, very healthy and I just feel like the next six months she's just got to get acclimated to this newer level. Great thing with today is the, the feeling she gave me cross country. She was, she's, she doesn't have a massive stride but she, man, she's quick, she's sharp and she's a little bit spooky too so you don't have to, she's not strong when you come to the ju can just stay quite light in your hand and she backs up and it was a tough enough course. There was a left corner, a right corner, a skinny one, straight hedges. Obviously this is the show jumping and she's starting to be very, very reliable in the show jumping. She's still a little bit spooky, but in a weird kind of way, the spookiness actually gets her up in air a bit more. She for sure is very, very careful. Great technique. I feel, I don't know, I just feel like she's really coming around and ready to crack on to be a big time hors. So my plan is to, you know, give her a nice easy day or two early next week and then just gently keep chipping away at everything, especially the dressage. Like I said at the beginning, it's a lot of it is more her just getting an understanding, understanding for all the new movements and not sort of, you know, when she doesn't quite understand it, she gets herself into a bit of a, you know, it gets a little bit fizzy over complicating things. But this is the cross country and she was great. Ground was great. I think we had like five time penalties so I don't know, about 15 or 20 seconds over the time. Which good thing is she's lightning fast. So I think that, you know, the speed and the endurance and all that stuff is going to be no problem at all. But there's no point in going flat out at these events. They're more sort of training events. Anyway. Everything seems to be getting better and better, Bon. And keep chipping away at her training and find another event for in, I don't know, three weeks or four weeks or something like that. Anyway, hope you're well. Take care of yourself, Bon.
