Barney Rubble - Bromont Three Day Event - June ‘24

This is a video for the Barney Rubble Syndicate. Well, guys, I'm at Montreal Airport about to head back to Pennsylvania after an epic Bromont three day event. This week we had Barney Rubble doing his first three star long. And it was a sort of a competition that I'd been working for or working towards for pretty much all year. And we had him very fit, as you can see here at the first trot up Barney, this is the first health inspection and old Barney was up on his toes and he was in prime condition to do very, very well at Bromont. This was sort of an important event. We sort of, you know, my goal is to get him up to the four star level the end of this year and next year. And to do the four star level you have to have to do well or you have to complete a three star. It was a great event for Barney. We obviously been had a sort of a fitness program to prepare him for this contest. And we'd been working very, very hard at his dressage and show jumping and he'd had a number of great lead up events this year. I really felt this year Barney had grown up a bit and you know, his competitions at the intermediate and three star short level all year have been very, very impressive. So anyway, I really went up to Bromwick feeling that we, we had a real chance of winning it. I was thrilled with the dressage. It still needs to get a little bit better, but he, he was magnificent. I think we scored a 26, 26.9 or something like that, which is by far his best score. Part of it is we'd obviously been working and been very focused on this particular dressage test. But the, the other big thing is we sort of got to the competitions a couple days before the dressage. So, you know, Barney's a raving lunatic when you first arrive somewhere and then by the second ride he's a little bit better and the third ride he's a little bit better. And this is probably his fifth, fifth time that I exercised him over the two days that he'd been there. And as you can see, he's actually sort of looks relaxed. Barney's got tremendous movement and beautiful paces. He's got a championship look and I was very pleased with him. There's three judges when we go to these FEI events and the judge at sea was the same judge from Badminton, a guy called Christian Steiner from Austria. Anyway, he had Barney on a phenomenal score. He said that he scored Barney at 74%, which is, I want to say, like, almost like a 22, 23, which is encouraging just because that guy's like one of the top, top judges in the world and he loved Barney. So basically I sort of walked their cross country course a couple of times and probably four or five times. And it was obviously by far the hardest course that we'd ever seen and the longest course. It was a little bit over eight minutes. And I really felt that it's not until you get to this level that you need a phenomenal athlete. Up until this three star long level, you can get away with slightly sort of unathletic, shiny show pony and do pretty well at the horse trials. And it's not until you get to these long format fei, three star and next year, four star, where Barney's best attribute, which is his gallop and his stamina and his fierce competitiveness, comes into play. Unfortunately, unfortunately, in the cross country the next day, which we've got a fair bit of footage from right at the end of the course, I made it a horrible mistake, which ultimately cost us the competition. But I've. I've been very, very frustrated and angry at myself just because Barney would have, could or should have won this three star long by about 10 points. But unfortunately, there's a big table and a bending four strides right at the end of the cross country course. And I was going to make the time. He was going flat out and sadly, I misjudged the ride to the table and had a bit of a half stride out and clambered over it and ended up on a. A perfect four and a half strides to this big corner, which was the third last jump. And at the same time, Barney was pretty tired and I got him to an impossible distance and he sadly ran out, which, it's still haunting me. Anyway, this is Barney cross country. He's about two minutes into the course here. This next fence was an influential fence. It was a coffin hanging rail and a steep embankment to a ditch, and then a curving four strides to an angled bench here. And Barney's got a big, big shrine. It was the first time that I really opened Barney up. The footing was fantastic. The ground was. He's lightning fast. He has got such a wonderful gallop. He's got so much speed. He just. He loves cross country. And I felt like he was, for the first time, just relieved that I was actually allowing him to go as fast as he wanted. He was in heaven. I mean, look at the stride on him. He was flying around the course. The video you see here is about halfway around the track, her At BR and her sister Megan is awesome. He was, he was jumping great. Jumping great. See the horses in the vet box there. I felt like towards the end of the course it was actually lovely to ride for the first time just because he wasn't pulling so much. But he was definitely huffing and puffing and that sort of contributed into a run out or a runoff at the end. I don't think Barney's ever been tired before and tired and I gave him a terrible ride to the jump. But I mean, look at the speed he's got here. Again, we're about halfway around here, but I mean he looks like he could run in the Kentucky Derby. Boy does not look like he's hanging about. Phenomenal jumper and a great cross country horse, sadly. Well, maybe it's not sadly that they didn't have a video on the third last jump which is not far after this water jump here. And it was heartbreaking because about now I looked at my watch, I had one minute to go and I was going to make the time and no one else in the whole class had made the time. So it was a devastating moment. Anyway, such is life and I'm sure in a year's time will be long forgotten. This is Sunday morning. This is the morning after the cross country and Barney's trotting up like he's brand new. He's very, very sound and healthy. And again, he was still full of energy. Actually woke up really, really early in the morning and worked him on the flat and you can see that he's up on his toes for the final trot up. Most horses are a bit tired by then. And Brian, he came out. I think we're in with the stop. When you have a run out cross country you get 20, 20 penalties for a run out. And after he ran out, I had to circle and then I just went really slow over the last couple fences on the way home. And he still only had nine time penalties which was way faster than most of the people that went clear in the course. Anyway, the great news guys is I do think Barney's ready to move up to advanced the four star level, which is nearly the pinnacle of the sport. And as you can see here, even when he's put in a huge effort cross country, he's still ultra careful and look how high he's jumping over these jumps. He's got a fantastic technique, scope and I love him. He's difficult, but I love him. Anyway, we're going to give him, I think he'll have two or three weeks rest. I think he's, he's a little bit exhausted after the weekend and his body needs a bit of a rest. We've been pushing him hard with the fitness work and mentally I think he needs a bit of a break. So summer now and the ground's getting a bit hard anyway, so I think we'll give him two weeks off and then walk him for a week and then get stuck back into it and prepare ourselves to move him up to the advanced four star level at the end of the year.