Miss Lulu Herself - Tryon FEI ‘22

This is a video for Bonnie Stead, the mighty owner of this mighty mare, Ms. Lulu herself. Well, bon mission complete. Lulu came up to, or went down to try on, I think, North Carolina to do her first ever three star short. And she went like a ripper. Obviously she's a feisty little number and getting here on Tuesday and working her on in the rings on Tuesday and Wednesday really made a difference for the dressage. By the time we did our dressage here on Thursday morning, she was quite relaxed and quite soft, which is. It's hard to get her this relaxed, you know, like when we do the pine tops or the, you know, the normal horse trials where we sort of turn up early in the morning and whip her off the trail and trailer and, and worker before the test. She's still quite anxious and nervous. So it's something to remember too that she's. There is a really, really nice moving, settled animal in there. Once we exhaust her a little bit. She's still green in these movements especially, you'll see in the half pasts. And she jogged a little bit in the walk, but I don't know, it's all in there. Eric's been helping me a lot at the show. He warmed me up for the dressage and got me moving her a lot more sideways, like trying to do a lot of bending work and leg yields and shoulder in and I feel like all that stuff. Look at that hole. If that's not a nine, I don't know what is. You know, trying to bend her and move her away from your legs and sort of getting her supple laterally is the key. All right now, Bonnie, this is the hardest move in the world. The old extended walk across the diagonal. And in Lulu's mind, she's like, let me go, let me go. And we nearly got it perfect. Just as I went from extended walk to collected walk. You'll see a jog and unfortunately, the judges dinged us for that. Right about now, she's thinking canter anyway. It's better than what it was. Remember at Stable View earlier this year, she was jogging across the whole, whole diagonal. You'll see in a moment, mate. She was brilliant in the show jumping. Peter Wild and Eric were both there and helped me warm up. And she was, she was actually the very first horse to jump in the show jumping and she was awesome. She's a great jumper. She's careful scope funny enough. The biggest thing for her in the show jumping cross country is when she gets a little bit excited. Her canter stride gets A bit short and choppy and trying to get her to cover more ground in the canter or the gallops. The key without her getting quick and fast, if you know what I mean. And then cross country. I was seriously impressed with her. Obviously we had a horrendous start to the year when we had trouble at the left handed corner at Pinetop and we did the walk of shame back to the trailers and there was this, this course was by far the hardest course she's ever done and there were multiple left handed corners on the course and she was such a good girl. She. I've schooled them over and over and over again so she really understands them now. And she pricked her ears and she jumped them beautifully. So Bon, after this I feel like our next competition should be the Bromont three star long. You know, she needs to do us. My goal would be to take her four star in advance next year. So that was a bit of a mistake there. That's supposed to be can of walk. And so to get her qualified for the four stars for next year we need to do, you know, see out this year at the three star short and an intermediate level and then we need to do one or maybe even two three star long. So I'd like to take her up to Bromont and again it won't be that much harder than what we had today or this weekend at try on but again it would be a longer course. So we've got three or four weeks where we can get her a little bit fitter and her soundness has been very, very good. So I know we've in the past had a couple of headaches but she's working harder than ever and jumping higher and training well and she's. We've had the vet checking her a lot and legs look great, she's flexing perfect and I feel like she's getting fitter and stronger all the time. So it's probably one of the biggest show jumping courses that we've done. Had to watch her at the first fence. If you remember our last start at Plantation, she clanged the first jump and I sort of rode her past the first fence this time and she jumped it beautifully. She's got a really, really good hind end and you know with when you jump her you sort of got to almost stay over her with your body. Sometimes she jumps pretty big behind that. I land a bit too far forward on her jump that sweet. So I think I'll give her a couple of easy days in Pennsylvania and then might get silver to help me a bit on the flat and I don't think there's any magic out there. She just needs to get a clear understanding of all the movements and you know, to be honest, working on her paces a little bit, trying to get the canter to open up and maybe ask for a little bit more medium trot. I feel like the show jumping is really good. I mean, she's a little bit spooky. So I think there's a way I could get her to another jumping show before Bromont would be good just because when she goes in she sees all the flower pots and the spooky stuff and it makes her a little nervous. Good girl. So with the cross country Bond, I in the back of my mind I said to myself, okay, we want to, we need to go clear here to get qualified. Not too fast and this is like jump five. And it was really tough and she actually jumped it really good. These hedges were sort of two strides offset and really pleased with that. And so my game plan for the cross country was to move her along a little bit. The ground was very good. Oh, here's your left corner. Easy and to a right corner. So I didn't dilly dally too much, but I didn't go full pelt on her. You know, there was a lot of technical jumps like skinnies and corners and water jumps and a little spooky there. And I think as she gets more consolidated at this level, we could go faster and faster. But you know, there's this magic blend of keeping her confident and brave. And obviously we love to win Bond. So once I feel like she's very consolidated at this level, we're gonna, we're gonna try and win a couple of these ones. But at the moment we're, we're new to this level. Here's another left corner. Beautiful. So at the moment, you know, this year we're sort of been moved up to this higher level and we've been a little bit on survival mode. But then, I don't know, she's starting to feel really, really comfortable now. So when the time's right and the events are important and the ground's good, we'll, we'll go for the time a little bit more. This is a big, big result for her though. That sort of proves, proves that she's a big time horse that's not going to get too much bigger. We're at the three star level now and nearly at the top of the sport, so it's not going to get too much more complicated. It might get a little bit bigger, a little bit wider and a little bit longer in distance, probably. But she's a. I know, she's like a little greyhound. Zips along nicely, You know, and I get the feeling that she's really enjoying the cross country. I don't know how to say it. Like, when they're a bit spooky and sharp, sometimes you sort of have to will them to get around and I don't know, like, the majority of the fences, she's taking me to the jumps, which is great. And she knows the stuff now. She knows the narrow, she knows the corners. And I think she's fast enough too. Like, she's quite zippy. Like she's a compact little horse and especially these twisty courses like this, we can sort of whip around. Anyway, Bon, I hope you're doing well, mate. We're thinking for you a lot and so, please, Lulu went well this weekend and check in with you soon and hopefully we can get her up to Bromont and give it a good crack.