Wabanaki - Kentucky Oct ‘20

This is a video intended for the Wabanaki Group. Me and Monty went down to Lexington, Kentucky to contest our first ever three star long. This is sort of a big focus that we've had all year and it was a. It's obviously a longer course. It was a three mile cross country course and in front of international judges, harder dressage test and a bigger show jumping. So it was. Yeah, we worked very, very hard all year to get Monty to this event. Obviously with me being injured, I hadn't competed Monty as much as I would have liked. I'm grateful that young Mike actually got him around a number of intermediates and three star shorts to prepare him. So this is Monty's dressage. This is first thing on Thursday morning, I think we had an 8 o' clock ride, so got up really early and gave him a 20 minute ride in the dark at about 6:00'. Clock. And he probably didn't really need it. He was nice and calm and relaxed and he put in a great test. I got to say, the dressage is always a work in progress with Monty. He's a good mover, but he's a longer horse and he's green and, you know, all in all, I got through this test without any big mistakes. Obviously there were parts that were a bit green, just like that rein back, he gets a little bit mouthy. But all in all, I was thrilled with him. Sadly, there was a big discrepancy in the judges. One judge had me on, I think 68% and then the other judge had me on 61%. So hoping the judge that had me on the biggest score was the right one. He's got a beautiful walk, beautiful extended walk. So it was a bit of a sore point. I was actually a bit irritated because it happened on a couple of horses. So I went and had a talk to the offending judge and it was a good discussion. I just sort of asked him where he thought the horse was going wrong and that sort of thing. For example, this next movement's a shoulder in right. The judge AT C gave me a four for this. Shoulder in right. And then the judge here at AT B gave me an 8, which is unheard of. So anyway, it was. It's fine. It was, it's. It's annoying though, just because we did finish on our dressage score at the end of the contest and had the judges been closer together, we would have finished in a higher placing. But by saying that this is a stepping stone event for Monty, this was a real test. This was a bit of a look for me to see if he could go a longer distance in the cross country. And he is really, really impressive. And then what really impressed me too is how fresh and, and you know, how well he came through the cross country the next day. He was perfect at the trot up and then his show jumped in. Just awesome. So, you know, it's a sign and this is sort of, we're starting to hit the big time now and up until now you can get away with a bit of a show pony at these, at the lower levels, but then as you go up the ranks here, they get weeded out a little bit. And when we selected Monty, we picked him partly because he's got a high percentage of thoroughbred, especially on the mother side. And that came through on Friday when we did the cross country. I think after this big event, I'm going to plan to give Monty about three weeks or maybe even four weeks rest a little bit. Physically, I think he's a bit tired, but mentally too, we've been really training him hard and really working, working hard at his dressage and his jumping and his fitness and I think he's sick of people, to be honest. So he, he's getting a well deserved rest come starting today, which is Sunday and we got home late last night. Monty pulled in about 3 o' clock in the morning, unloaded and he's out in the field today and he looks happy not to be doing anything. So this was, let's see, Friday, Friday morning, this is the cross country again, first thing in the morning. The sun was a bit of a bugger early in the morning and it was great riding around the horse park. It was a long track. This was early on in the course. He was a little bit aggressive there. I had to sort of hold him back a bit and it was the first time that I'd really pushed him hard and opened him up and asked him to go for it a bit. I've got to say, the first maybe two minutes on the course, he did feel a little bit of a baby. Like this is the first three jumps here. This is the first combination since 4ab. And he felt a little bit, whoa, we're going faster than we usually do. And these jumps are a little bit bigger than what I'm used to. He's a good boy. He never ever looked. It was quite a challenging course. He never looked to question any of the fences. And I was really happy to stay with Alex Boone, who, who owns a small part of this horse for the time we were in Kentucky and it was a great time. Alex lives about 20 minutes down the road and cooked up a great barbecue every night. This is the coffin. He jumped that like a champ. She had a glance off at that. On another horse, I was fuming about it. But this is like about seven or eight minutes into the course. We got about a mile to go and you can see Monty's still charging, so I was really, really wrapped with him. So he trotted up well. And then this is a show jumping round. Pretty tough course. It wasn't in the big stadium. And the show jumping, again, a bit like the dressage, been a work in progress. I figured out, like, he likes to travel with his head high and I'm just not trying to fix it, you know, like just trying to sort of roll along with it, not fight his mouth. And I find at the jumps where if you actually let his mouth go just before he takes off, he actually comes off the jump even better. Where some horses, if you sort of tug them off the floor a bit with your hands or your fingers, they jump better. Where Monty actually almost likes no contact as he takes off and sort of that delicate middle ground where I've got to try and balance him and slow him but not overdo it, where I get in a argument with his mouth. So he jumped good. He jumped this vertical really well. Where I get a bit close and actually let him go and used himself well. So we finish on our dressage score. We've got a horse qualified for next year, for the next level. I think he still needs some mileage at this three star level, but he showed me that he is a horse for the future. So I'd like to thank you guys for a great year. We're going to give him a rest and then get cracking with him next year. Thank you.