Thomas - Training And Competition Video Towards The Pan Ams

Before we get started, I'd like to make special mention of a really good sponsor of mine, Mageek. Without question, they're the leaders in horse jumping boots, cross country boots, which I helped develop, show jumping boots. They're a wonderful company out of California and I'd recommend everyone getting Mageek boots and get them through great companies like Smart. I thought I'd do a quick video of Thomas training leading up to the Pan American Games. Obviously he had a good run at Maryland Horse Trials. I gave him an easy week the week after. And then I took him up to Princeton, New Jersey to jump a couple of rounds. Show jumping. What you're seeing here is the meter 20 and this was on a Wednesday. And I sort of took him up there to put him in a little bit of atmosphere. There was music, stadium flags, tents, you name it. And Thomas gets a little bit nervous at the show. So it was sort of a good practice jumping him around a track where the result doesn't matter too much. As you saw before, we had a pole down, but a weird kind of way that cost you a lot at a horse trial. But through these height classes at the show, it has no real bad effect. In a weird kind of way, it's good letting him sort of bump into one if he is a bit too keen. As you can see, he's a little bit hard to ride. It doesn't have the best concentration in the ring. He sort of is gazing out at the flags and not paying complete attention. But I knew he'd be like this. And it's part of the exercise of just trying to schooling him in the ring. And what you see here is the meter 30 and this is obviously a little bit bigger than the Wednesday class. So this was two days later, this was on the Friday. So I did a bit of dressage the day between the two days and then I changed my equipment around a little bit. I put him in a bit of a hacker bit which is a bit with rope noseband and a bit. And I put some different back boots and I put some of the Mageek back boots which have clips which sometimes can make them jump a little bit better behind. And as you can see, he's a lot more settled. It's a fair bit bigger, this track itself. Meter 30. So this would be about the height of Kentucky three day event, five star. Again, he's a bit wonky through that turn. Same spot as the Wednesday class. But to be honest, he's not a natural super duper jumper. But he's really, really trying here and he's a lot more settled today. I gave him a little bit ride, a bit of a ride in the warm up ring before the class started, just to try and settle him. I think we have a pole here. And again it's the old combination where he gets a bit quick and runs past your hands slightly. And I think at the Pan Ams or a bigger competition, I can hold him off that one. But it sort of does him no harm to let him bump into one if he gets a little bit keen. As I said before, show jumping is not his strongest phase, but it's getting better and better. And he's a funny horse. He doesn't jump that well at home. And I'm really, really pleased with this round just because he's making a shape, he's being a good boy. And so you can see I married well. I'm utilizing my wife Silver here. She often hops on and schools some of my top horses. And she's been a big part of Thomas's training and she's. Every time I work him on the flat, she's there keeping a close eye on him and being very, very focused leading up to the Pan American Games and took this opportunity to film little Tricana and my beautiful wife. And he's really humming along in the dressage. And just before we went to the training camp, which is in Aiken, South Carolina, I gave him one last cross country school. We were very lucky with a good hit of rain the night before and I decided to do a little bit of a cross country school. Obviously he had a good run around the cross country at Maryland Horse Trials, but then I wanted to just do one more jump school before we have to run him at Peru. He started out pretty good, nice and relaxed, but I'm riding him pretty quiet and slow. And the hard part with Thomas is in the first couple of minutes of the course he does get a bit excited. So I'm just cruising around these smaller preliminary size jumps, trying to keep him calm. Sometimes he gets a little bit excited and tears off at them a bit. But here he's been good. Very lucky to have this cross country schooling course in my own backyard. Here I'm just sort of working on his turning and sort of jumping this smaller fence here and almost turning him in the air and trying to work on his sort of rideability and his adjustability. It's going to be a twisty course, I hear. So then I sort of stepped it up on some slightly bigger fences and a little bit more speed. And about now he starts getting a little bit buzzed up and a little bit keen and this is what I've got to try and address in this session. I don't really need to teach him anything. See here again he puts his head up and takes off a bit and I did a circle there. So again this cross country school is more trying to get him a little bit settled and thinking and not running around like a madman. To be quite frank, I was a little bit surprised how spiced up he was. He looks alright on the video. I know, but he felt like he was full of running so went back to my turning exercise. This is a Philip Dutton special. This exercise sort of jumping and turning him in the air and trying to make him a little bit soft and supple and trying to get him listening to my hand. And again I don't really need to teach him how to jump any particular jump, but more trying to work on the fact that when we go out cross country in about 10 days time in South America, that he's listening to me and he's turning right and he's turning left and he's starting to get better. He's getting a little bit worn out but he still keen. It's important not to lose your cool with the horse. He's obviously an accomplished athlete and he knows when it's cross country he loves it and he almost loves it a bit too much. So these cross country schooling sessions are more of a kind of relaxation exercise. Set up a doubler corners, see the ears are pricked and Thomas sees him. He's a veteran now so he, he can pick up on those corners again. I'm sort of going at about training or prelim speed and trying to really get him to jump these. Well from memory here he jumps this and tears off towards that narrow. I set up this white box and then a very steady six stride, skinny to skinny. And it's a fascinating horse. I mean he's only 16 hands but he's got a monster stride. And he actually rips down here on five strides and he did it, he walked it in five. This is my fancy new ETB water jump. I just put it in last year. Good friends with Eric Bull. And again when schooling water jumps, even with the upper level horses, I just never jump them in too big. A fence like that's probably a training size fence. And it's very important with the water jumps that they're very, very confident. So I would never point them at a big sort of intermediate advanced fence practicing. See here I'm jumping the skinny and his ears are pricked on it back here. He's such a good boy. He's looking for the fences, so I'm really, really pleased with him. And here's a video of our final gallop. We're very, very lucky. One of our neighbours in Pennsylvania allows Thomas to canter up her hill. This is a legendary hill not far from my place. And go up it three times, and I've got him very, very fit. So I usually go up a little bit quicker, but I decided to go up three times, a little bit slower, lower, and takes about two minutes, 20 from bottom to top. And we're very, very lucky to have access to this sort of facility. It's just magic. You don't have to go very fast and the heart rate gets high. Anyway, we're loading him up for Aiken. We're in a training camp in Aiken for a couple of days and then driving him down to Miami and then he flies off to Peru. So it's exciting. We're getting close now and he's in great form and not long to go.