Barney Rubble - Fair Hill HT - May ‘24

This is a video for the Barney Rubble syndicate. Guys, I'm on cloud nine with Barney. He is seriously coming to the party this year. I was nervous that he'd be wild and out of control and crazy in the dressage just because I was away all last week in England. Now, Silver did school him on the flat Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. And then my guys did some fitness work on him and gave him a gallop. But he, I didn't really ride him until Tuesday when we got home. And he's usually wild man, but as you can see here, Barney Rubble is starting to mature. He's starting to, starting to take a breath and you can just see glimpses of the stardom that we've, I've been promising you all for. So this dressage test is nowhere near our best work, but it still was bloody good from memory. I think we scored a 29 or something like that. And Barney, if I sort of, you know, the couple of days before the competition, I really worked him hard to try and get a lot of his nervous energy out of him. And it worked, actually. He felt very, very good in all phases. Now he's still full of, full of energy, but it's now, it's to the point where I feel like I can ride him a bit, which is really good. So we're heading, we're heading, Barney, to the three star long at Bromont, which I think's in three or four weeks time. It's a, it's a great event. Anyone that can make it up there, it's a, it's an awesome show. It's, it's right in, right in a small little village called Bromont. And there's lovely restaurants and beautiful downtown and great hotels and was the venue for the 1976, I believe, Olympics Montreal. Now Barney should be very, very competitive there. It'll be a challenge for him though, by saying that the way he went cross country at this competition at Fair Hill was so good. The saddest thing for me is that we didn't get to video any of the cross country just because we had a bunch of horses going and grooms leading horses back and forth and calling horses out. And unfortunately I didn't have one of my guys out there with a video camera. But I can promise you he was, he was unbelievable in the cross country. He was calm and relaxed and waiting for his fences and bold and brave and it was the best ride I've ever had on him. Same in the show jumping. It's a crappy show jumping here you'll see in a minute. It's in this sort of little grass field and it's twisty and turny and Barney, Barney's so careful and he's such a good jumper that it was just brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And anyway, we ended up winning the class, which doesn't really matter. I'm not too worried about the results at these horse trials. They're more of a fitness run and a bit of an education of the cross country and whatnot. But obviously it's always nice to have the sweet taste of victory. You can see there he's still got a little bit of energy. Actually. This is bringing back some memories. I think on the next long side was when Barney couldn't quite contain himself up until now that the test had been very, very good. And then my buddy Barney just gave me a little reminder that he's not completely changed. He had a bit of a spook at the boards here. Now again, all these spooking and shine and nerves, they'll all be gone by the time we get. By the time we get to Bromont because we'll get to Bromont 3, three days before the dressage and we'll work Barney a couple of times a day and make sure that stuff doesn't happen. And again, at these horse trials with these high, high octane horses, this, their shenanigans show up a bit. Anyway, I feel like we're in business and not to get ahead of myself. I think we're going to be very competitive in the three star long there at Bromont. It's perfect timing. Fingers crossed. I'm going to go to the Olympics which is exactly the time Barney needs a bit of a holiday. And then I feel like my goal after that would be to aim in for a four star short. Were advanced at the end of. At the end of this year, which is going to set us up just perfect for four star next year. And then with. With the big boys, You know. And obviously it's been a long road with Barney, but it's worth. I feel like it's been worthwhile being patient with him because he's one of these horses that could. It could have been an absolute disaster if we rushed him. He's such a talent, but he's a bit of a lunatic and I feel like he's a tricky horse because he's so wild that you really need. He's sensitive, you really need to take time. And the hardest thing with the training is you can't. He's very frustrating to ride and train and you can't sort of get rough on him. You sort of have to have to go along with him a bit. But I love him. There's not many horses that in a venting that jump this high over the fences and are this careful. Don't forget he hadn't show jumped for about two weeks before what you're seeing here, because I just gave him a little cross country school on Thursday before the competition. So he's just a naturally scopey, careful, sharp jumper. We gave him a trot up this morning and he looks in good health and I feel like we're rocking and rolling with Barney now and obviously we've still got some challenges ahead of us, but we're in with a real good chance. Come Bromont three day event in about three or four weeks time.