In this July 2024 video, the speaker provides a detailed update on the Olympic training camp held in Vateau, France, focusing on two American eventing horses, Connor Commando and Bruno. He describes the camp’s setting, daily routine, and the involvement of key coaches and support staff, including Bettina Hoy, Silva, Eric Davander, Liz Halliday, and Peter Wild, as well as veterinary oversight by Dr. Jones. The speaker outlines the horses’ dressage and jumping preparation, highlights recent performances at the Stableview lead‑up event, and discusses strategic competition considerations such as potential entries at Burley, Maryland, and the upcoming Paris Olympic venue. He emphasizes the importance of balanced training, health monitoring, and avoiding over‑training, noting the use of a synthetic all‑weather track and regular vet checks. Personal elements such as his yoga, gym routine, and gratitude toward supporters are shared, concluding with confidence and appreciation as the team approaches the final phase before the Olympic competition.
Chapters
Hello everyone. I thought I'd put a video together for all of the owners of Fetimon B and Commando 3 and our subscribers and all my supporters, friends and family. We've had a wonderful week's training here in Vateau, France. It's a nice quiet little town about three hours south of Paris. The horses arrived all in good shape. There's seven American horses in the camp and lucky for me I had two of them. The horse you're seeing here is Connor Commando, who is an amazing, amazing horse. Deep down I'm absolutely gutted that in the old days there used to be an individual competition and a team's competition. And it breaks my heart having Connor going so well, so fit and so ready. And unfortunately he doesn't get to go to a show next week. As you can see, Bettina Hoy made the trip down from Germany. She made a six or seven hour drive south and this is the third day of us being in Vattel. The first day I just took him for a long, long walk. The second day I did some, some pretty light flat work and stretching work and then Bettina came and she was, she was straight into it. The horses were very fresh and fit. Obviously they're feeling good after being so fit and then also, also having a couple of easy days. And Bettina's awesome. She's sort of been helping me the last couple of years with both these horses and that's really awesome that she could be here. Obviously Silva's been my main trainer on the dressage for this whole preparation but Bettina and Silva really work well together. The future looks bright for Connor. We obviously had him as our backup horse and like I said before, he's in sizzling form. It's very hard to actually split which horse is better and I think the selectors obviously went with the more seasoned campaigner, but this fellow is going to be amazing. I'm toying with the idea of either running him at Burley or Maryland. Five star would be our goal and I think he could hit the ball out of the park with either event. He's still a little bit inexperienced in the dressage. We've been working hard with his flying changes but he's really coming on. And the nice white faced beast here is Bruno and Bettina hopped on him for about 15 minutes at the start of our session. She's ridden him quite a lot in the last couple years and she, she really gets him. Very well connected. And poor old Bruno, it's like, oh, where's the nice guy? That lets me be all long and strung out and Bettina doesn't have any of that. And within a short amount of time, Bettina had him really purring along. Bruno's dressage is getting better and better, as you can see there. Eric Davander was also here. He's been a great mentor of mine and was in the camp keeping an eye on things. He's sort of helping me a little bit. And Liz Halliday and Eric and Bettina are good friends from the old days as well, so they're a good team. Bettina really worked it in the dressage, in the warm up, really trying to open Bruno's canter up and then shorten him up and open him up, then shorten him up and keep him in quite an uphill frame. I really feel like Bruno's in the best condition we've ever had him. I mean, with these two horses. I've never been so focused on one event as much as I had for Parison. I have to say everything's pretty much gone smoothly in the whole preparation. We had a great lead up event at Stableview. I felt like I gave the horses a good round. They both perform well. They're both super duper fit. I felt like at Tokyo I wish I had Thomas just a little fitter. So I've really got stuck into both these guys and we're very, very fortunate. One of our neighbours has allowed us to. They use the synthetic all weather track, which is a huge advantage. So they've been basically galloping every fourth day. So we're sort of getting towards the end of our camp tomorrow. Let's see, tomorrow's Wednesday and Wednesday morning we move all the horses to Paris, to the venue. And Connor will stay at a stable about 20 minutes down the road and we can still exchange him. God forbid, if anything went wrong with Bruno in the last 72 hours. We're still in a position where we could change Connor out for Bruno. But at the moment they're both looking very, very healthy and they're both in great form. This is the jumping. This was this morning. And again I was very, very blessed to have Peter Wild make the journey over. Peter's been a huge, huge help for me in the jumping and like Bettina, he sits on the horses a little bit. The horse you're seeing here is Connor and he just jumped fantastic. This morning we had a little bit of a. Just a small easy round. There was a wall, a bit of a spooky wall that we think that there's going to Be a wall in the show jumping at Paris. So we wanted to school it a bit and kind of was a little looky this first time but after that he was good. The venue that we're at was it's nice and quiet actually I quite like it. It's sort of a golf course and a racetrack and I don't know, it's just a nice quiet low key. It wasn't too busy and the horses really, really loved it here. My daily life has been luxurious. I basically ride these two boys in the morning and very relaxing afternoon. I usually do some yoga or go to the gym, just hang out and my life's been very, very frantic and busy this year and having a couple of easy days been really, really nice. I wouldn't want it like this all the time. I think I'm nearly getting sick of living the good life and miss riding horses all day. Connor's a brilliant show jumper. I just love the way he jumps. He's got power and scope. He really tries every fence and it's unusual that he'd ever touch a rail. And our jumping sessions with both horses this morning was just flawless. I was very, very pleased with all of them. Like I said there's been seven horses in the camp and each of the riders have brought their own coaches in. We've all used different dressage and jumping coaches and the chef to keep Bobby Costello wanted all of the horses to do a short sharp gallop and the vets were all there just to check their heart and recovery and everything. And both my guys obviously very, very conditioned so we're in good health. Bruno was super as well. He's jumping great. The jumping exercises were pretty simplistic. There wasn't too many fancy tricks. We just warmed up over a vertical and oxa. Then we sort of jumped the low easy round just to show them around, especially the wall. We jumped the wall quite small the first time. Then we stuck it up to about a meter 25 meter 30, not super big, sort of did a mini course. Peter and Eric set up a, you know, a treble and had a few spooky planks in Liverpool and obviously the wall. And I always find it fascinating. The last jump school before a really, really big event is short and sweet. All the hard work's been done in Pennsylvania in the lead up and really have made a huge effort in this preparation to really ease off and back off the horses the last 10 days. So I've sometimes made the mistake in the past of over training and wanting to do it, wanting to win so bad that I rode and rode and rode and drilled and drilled and drilled, and by the time I got to the event, the horses were a bit empty. So I don't know, I feel like both horses are just in a very, very good place. They're happy, they're feeling good in their body and they're performing well and. And they've got plenty of energy. So I think I've got my tail up. I'm quietly confident coming into this one, but as we know, with eventing, anything can happen. I think Silver and Knox come over on Wednesday night or Tuesday night tonight, so I'll hopefully see them tomorrow afternoon in Paris. My plan is to get the horses to the show and then in the afternoon, just have put a jumping saddle on and hack them around. And then starting Thursday, we'll start gearing up for the dressage test. Like I said, Connor's 20 minutes down the road. I'll go back and forth and ride him and feel like we're in. We're in good shape. All the horses, all the American horses look really, really good. I think. Had a. We've had a great camp. It's been short, short and sweet. Nothing seems to have gone wrong. Every day, the. The doctor, the vet, Dr. Jones, trots all the horses up and checks them over and makes sure that they're in good order there. With the. The way the Olympic scoring system is set up, the. The health and the soundness of the horses are very, very, very important because there's no drop score, so it's essential they all trot up. But anyway, guys, it's. It's nearly crunch time. I wanted to thank all you guys that support these horses and have supported me along the way, and I feel like we've got it. A huge group of people cheering us on and helping us out. So I just want you all to know how much I appreciate all the support. It's obviously a massive effort to get to this place and as they say, it takes a bit of a village to get here. And I just want everyone to know how much I appreciate what everyone's done for me and I don't take it for granted. And this weekend we're going to give it our best shot, but I think we're in with a good chance.
