Barney Rubble - Millbrook HT - July ‘23

This is a video for the Barney Rubble Syndicate. Well, guys, we're on our way home from Millbrook, New York, where we spent the last couple of days with Barney. He contested the Open intermediate and he went fantastic. Obviously, we've done one Open intermediate earlier in the year, which was February down at Pinetop, and it was a bit of a disaster and we had to regroup a bit and do a couple more prelims and a two star long at Bromont just to get him confident and humming along. And I'm glad we did that because he was absolutely fantastic in the. In the Open intermediate this weekend at Bromont at Millbrook. We got up there on Thursday. I kind of like these shows with Barney because you can ride him a couple of times before the dressage and get a bit of the energy out of him. Now, we did have one small blip in the dressage. Barney went the wrong way and actually I take a little bit of responsibility for it too. But we unfortunately had a course era, which was incredibly frustrating because I'd already done this test on one horse. So, yeah, probably a little bit my fault as well. That being said, Barney was going absolutely brilliantly through the test. I feel like we got him rounder, he's softer, and he's starting to do a lot more complicated movements. Like this half pass that you're seeing now is sort of one of the five star movements that we see. And it's, you know, Barney's got the idea of these, these, these higher, higher caliber movements. He's still a little bit green here and there, but generally speaking, obviously there's. I mean, the horse has always had amazing quality. I mean, look at the movement here. And I feel like his training is slowly but surely catching up to his, his, his quality. We got a lot of sevens and, and, yeah, unfortunately, a Corsair, which you'll see in a minute, which I've carefully edited. But general, he was fantastic throughout the test. The best part of the weekend was the cross country. The ground was perfect. They had a monsoon of rain throughout the whole event. So the ground in Millbrook at this time of the year can often be hard when we go up there. And it was absolutely perfect. It was like in English turf. The course was a decent track. It was probably the biggest Barney had seen. And unfortunately, we didn't get much of the video of the cross country. Got a little bit to show you, but he was, he was just brilliant the whole way around. Being a green horse and his first run back since Bromont, I definitely just went Nice and easy. I was about 30 seconds over the time, but he went clear and then he came out on Sunday and showed up perfectly. The judges love his canter work. This is the medium canter and obviously he's still getting to know these movements and I think now that we're at this level, we'll be practicing in schooling. Like this can or walk can is still. He's almost like an eel when you're doing this, doing this movement. But now that he's at this level, this will be just part of his daily regime. I feel like the hot weather or the training is starting to really click in. He's less spooky and less wild than, than he has been known for. I don't know, I think in the future he's going to be, he's going to be very, very hard to beat in the dressage. So this is where I made a bit of a mistake. You'll see a little blip it in the, in the video here where I actually turned left here by mistake and oop, there we go. The brilliance of editing. So anyway, we picked up a penalty of two errors just because I went off course. But as you could all imagine, this, this weekend was all about giving Barney a good, good trip around and a confident run and he was, he was brilliant. I think we'll give Barney a little bit of an easier week this week and then I think he's ready to do a three star short, most likely thinking there's a good event at Great Meadow, it's going to be a tough course, it's a three star short. But the feeling Barney gave me this weekend, I mean he could tackle anything. He's so bold and brave and the good thing with him now, he's not over jumping, which is great. And you'll see this in the show jumping as well. He's still jumping nice and high over the fences, but he's not sort of lobbing himself, catapulting himself in the air and sort of landing in a heap anymore. So anyway, we scored a 33.4 which left us in sixth place. I think there was that midfield. This is early on the course. That's probably Fence, Fence four. So he was still jumping a bit high and fresh at this part of the course. And he started to settle in a bit, sees a big galloper and a lot of the distances feel a bit short on him. Like this was a tricane of five strides, but jumps the tricana so big that you almost have to really slow him down to get the Five strides. Good thing is, as we go up the levels towards five star, the course designers seem to make the distance between the jumps on a longer stride. So with Barney's big stride and big jump, you could sort of keep galloping at the the combinations. This is the water. It's quite an easy water, but Barney jumped it. Well, that was fantastic. Seeing a number of the owners of the Barney Rubble syndicate up in Millbrook. I think I had the biggest cheering squad in the show jumping on Sunday. It was awesome to have him out there. And, I mean, I know a lot of you guys don't get to see Barney much, so like I said, he pulled up very, very well after the cross country and he as fresh as a daisy. I did some flat work on him on Sunday morning, had a little bit of time and he felt really good. He's just pinging off the ground. We've been working a bit with Peter Wild, actually. Maybe at the end of this video I'll put in a bit of Peter's training. He was here on Tuesday or Monday of earlier this week before we went up to Millbrook us a hand and I don't know, it's going really well. I really feel like we're in good shape with Barney. It's sort of all clicking into gear. He's moving up the levels, he's very, very healthy and sound and he's starting to really understand the sport. So it's taken a little bit to get him going, but I think we're in a place now where we can really crack on. So anyway, we'll go a little bit easy on him for a few days, do a few gallops and then most likely aim him for the three star short at Great Meadow Horse Trials in Virginia, which is towards the end of August. I really feel like we're in good shape. Here's a little bit of video footage from jump school before Millbrook, under the watchful eye of our jumping coach, Peter Wilde. Anyway, guys, thanks for the support. We're looking good.