Ray Price - Fair Hill - Aug ‘21 (with audio)

Hello, everyone. This is a video intended for the Ray Price syndicate. Guys, I've had a whirlwind of a week or two. Last weekend I was in Tokyo racing around the Olympic Games and got home on Wednesday and quickly jumped on Ray and gave him a ride on the flat and then a bit of a jump and took him to the Fairhill Horse Trials, which is not far from our farm. It's about half an hour up the road and this is sort of just there. It's a smaller event all on one day, dressage, cross country and show jumping. And I put Ray in the open prelim. So he's been ticking along really well in his training. Obviously the top priority is to, is to really slowly build his fitness up, get his muscle back and his stamina and his endurance back. After a long, long layoff of not doing much exercise. I feel it's important not just to go straight back full blast into the work that he was doing and like any athlete is just slowly but surely build him up. While I was away in Tokyo, Mike, my assistant rider, took him around a training horse trial at Maryland and went very nice and easy and slow. And again, Ray finds this level really, really easy. He's an advanced Aventus, so he's sort of going back to the level he was competing when he was 7 and 8 years old. So in a weird kind of way, I think it's, it's easy for Ray. What my idea is that we just gently chip away it slowly building him up over the smaller jumps, then a little bit bigger and the distance a little bit longer and longer each time. My goal would be to try and get him to a three day event at the end of this year. And I feel like if I can get him through a three day event towards the end of the year at Malvern park or Tryon, even if it's at the three star level or maybe four star level unscathed, then I think we've got a horse for next year. So I'm walking the balancing rope of just trying to keep him together, not put too much pressure on his legs and his body and trying to get him back in the swing of things. So he did pretty good in the dressage. I think he got a score in the 20s, like a 28 or something like that. Again, he should get that. He's an advanced eventer and this dressage test was easy peasy for him. Mike's been doing a good job on him. When I got home, he felt good and healthy and in good, good shape. I'D have to say in the dressage. What my main focus now that I'm back is I'm going to try and get his neck stretching down a little bit lower. Like I feel, especially at the competition, he's. His head and his frame almost come up a bit too much and his back stiffens a little bit. So I think working Ray like he's got a little bit of a weaker back, trying to work Ray in like a bit of a rounder, deeper frame in his training, hopefully strengthen his top line and sort of the muscles sort of just behind the saddle there because when he gets a little bit nervous, he, he looks up a bit and. And then sort of tightens through the base of his neck. So that's part of my training strategy. He's good boy. In the show jumping and cross country, show jumping, he's a bit of a spook, Ray like he, he's a good boy. But there was a camera, this automatic camera underneath one of the oxes and it's got those shots, shutter sort of photos where as you take off the camera go, you know, and it spooks them and some. Most horses don't care. And Ray had a real spooky. You'll see it in a moment where he almost gets a fright. So he had one pole down just because he got a fright at the camera or the shutter of the camera sounding like a machine gun. But I wasn't too bothered. Obviously this event was more of a. An event to build him up for later in the year. So it's more that he had a good run and then the cross country. I just cantered around like an old, old lady. Again, the ground was hard and I'm more trying to just get him through these first couple of events and make sure he's trotting up good and happy and healthy after the event. This is his show jumping around. I thought he'd jump well. And again, this is the preliminary height, so he should jump well. This is pretty low and easy. And again, I haven't been jumping him big at home, more just over smaller fences just to get the old body working again. Every now and then he gets a little bit nervous and quick at the jump. So part of the training at home is to try and slow him up and getting him using himself. He's got just a nice lovely soft gallop, like he doesn't hit the ground hard, which I love in a horse. A little bit quick through there and scooted off. So I think my next event is going to be the open intermediate At Seneca Valley. Again, this Seneca is a sort of low key localish event down in Maryland. And we'll put him up to the next level, which here's the jump with the camera. Boom. A bit of a fright. So Seneca open intermediate. And again, I'm going to use this strategy of just going around nice and slow, get him around a bigger course over the bigger jumps. And all these events I think will assist in his sort of fitness. I love riding him cross country. He just glides across the grass. He's a pure athlete. I think he's like 80% thoroughbred and he's definitely got a full thoroughbreds mind. He wants to go. It's funny how horses don't forget anything. You know, like Ray's basically been out of action for a long time and you know, you don't have to teach him anything new. He knows all the jumps, knows when he sees a narrow. It's a narrow. It's a corner. It's a corner. Water's water. And you know, with our training, I'm sort of erring on the side of doing the bare minimum of really trying to protect Ray and get him back to full fitness before we put too much pressure on him. So anyway, I think three weeks time we'll take him down to Seneca and put him in the open intermediate and just try and get a couple of more quiet events out of him. And you never know, he might make a great comeback to the top of the sport.