A rider takes the high-energy horse Barney Rubble to a three-day event at Lexington Horse Park in Kentucky. Barney wins dressage with a 26.3 score and cross-country despite seven time penalties, showing power and scope over jumps. The focus is on settling his fiery temperament early and tweaking equipment before targeting a two-star competition.
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This is a video for the Barney Rubble Syndicate. Well, guys, we took Barney Rubble all the way down to Lexington, Kentucky. It was a great event down here at the horse park. I chose this event specifically just because it's always a good track down here and in three weeks time. A big goal for the year is the try on three day event. And to me, about three weeks before a big event, I love to give them a run. So, yeah, coming down to Lexington, Kentucky was, was perfect for Barney and it was really pleased we got here. We arrived on, on Wednesday and then lucky for me, it was a, you know, Barney's a pretty high energy horse, so I actually got to ride him around the rings and get him a little bit more settled in than, than a lot of the one day events that we've been doing. And it was definitely any big improvement for Barney just to get him more relaxed. He's a, he's a fiery character. I love him to bits, but oh, man, on that first ride, he's breathing fire. And I got a couple of rides in, actually I, I got two or three rides in before we did this dressage test and he was awesome. He, he's just an incredible mover. He wants to do it. He's. The judges love him. We scored a 26.3, so it's a, you know, I know it's only the prelim level, but he just feels like he's got so much power, scope and movement. And we won the dressage, which was fantastic. Sort of has this feeling of, you know, like on here, on the medium counter circle. When you ask him to expand his stride a bit, he's like, all right, hold on. And like I said before, these are the most ideal events for Barney where we get there a day or two before the contest starts and can really sort of do a good job at getting him chilled and relaxed, taking a breath. The show jumping was the next day. We've got the round and he was very energetic again in the warm up. He's jumping about three feet over the standards in the warm up and landing and trying to throw me off on the backside. But again, something in his DNA is when he sees a jump, he just does. Turns himself inside out to get his legs out of the way. And he's got so much power and scope. It's, I mean, as you can understand, I just love him to bits. I mean he's, he's definitely a forward thinking, brave, fast horse. And if I can just get him settled, I think the sky's the limit. He's bloody brilliant. On the cross country. The ground was a bit hard. Unfortunately in Kentucky they've had zero rain. I couldn't believe it when we got there it was brown compared to Pennsylvania. And Barney was, he was great in the cross country. I played around with a different bit. I put a rubber straight bar Pelham in him and it was just perfect. Like he, I mean he gets strong and brave cross country but he sort of, I can control him and not fight with him too much. So like I said guys, in three weeks time we're aiming him for the, the two star long, which is a FEI level three day event try on and he should be very, very competitive there. Again, all these events are sort of stepping stones and you know, progression towards next year's three. And I mean all these jumps, it just feels effortless on him. And I have to say after doing the dressage and the show jumping, it was actually very good to warm up in the cross country. I think he'd got a fair bit of energy out of him in the, in the dressage and show jumping. And as you can see he's quite playful after the jumps here and feel like his tail's above my head sometimes when I'm jumping him. I think as it gets bigger and we have to go a little bit faster, all that exuberance will settle down a little bit. It's got a really big stride. He sort of gets to the jump and he picks up, pounces off the ground. It's a wonderful feeling. So probably get him home and give him a couple easy days and probably give him a little bit of a gallop. Towards the end of the week we'll have one or two more jump schools with the jumping training. It's nothing to do with making him jump better. He jumps unreal how he is. It's more of a case of getting relaxed and ridable and working on our turns. So this is the cross country and. And again I went at about 3 quarter pace and he was bloody brilliant. We ended up winning the class and we won it easily. Even though we, we went around the cross country and had seven time penalties which sort of was a good speed. I practiced jumping the fences out of stride. I just didn't sprint in between the jumps. Anyway, guys, I can't tell you how excited and fired up I'm about this horse and I think he's a real chance at try on.
