Barney Rubble, a high-energy horse, scored 31.1 in dressage at Pine Top Horse Trials in Georgia, his first competition of the year. The narrator, recovering from hip surgery, is aiming for a four-star at Tryon in May, with help from trainers Bradley Champagne, Silva, and Peter Wild. Barney ran cross-country slow as a schooling session, about 40 seconds off target time.
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This is a video for the Barney Rubble Syndicate. Well, everyone, we got Barney out to his first competition of the year. It was actually his second competition of the year. I took him to a show jumping day at Bruce's Field about a week ago just to get him off the farm. We were out at Pinetop Horse Trials in Georgia Thompson, Georgia. And Barney was the very, very first horse to go at 8am on Saturday. So we did the dressage and show jumping on Saturday. Then cross country was on Sunday. This looks a little bit better than it feels. Barney was, was on edge and you can see there, he just got a little bit tight and resistant. The dressage judge was pretty kind to us, actually. They gave us a 31.1. We had some eights and nines and unfortunately they just gave us a 4 for that movement there. But I knew Barney would be like this. He's, he's a real feisty horse. And the first competition of the year, he, he knows what he's in for. And for some reason at Pine Top Horse Trials, it's a quite a quiet sort of place. But the horses get very, very fired up. I think they can see the cross country course out on the, across the lake there and they can also hear the horses show jumping down below and whatnot. But my basic plan was just to give Barney just a nice easy run. And in the cross country, which you'll see a little later on the, on the film here, we went pathetically slow. We were about 40 seconds slower than what they, they wanted us to go. But I was sort of treating this as a cross country school. Barney's had some big epic competitions at the end of last year and it was kind of nice riding them around, a real easy one. I will say. Barney's looking fitter and stronger and more filled out than ever. He obviously was a bit of a skinny, scrawny horse when we first got him. And a couple years of training and feeding and exercise and all the strength work we've done. He's a beautiful looking horse now. He's a really, really elegant type and very, very proud. The way he looks now, his brain is a little bit, a little bit tricky to ride sometimes. Looks actually better than it feels inside. Barney feels like he's about to explode. And you know, I've got a lot of these sort of high energy horses and at the end of the day when we really need the power and the energy and the scope and the fight at the five star level, that's when these horses are just perfect. Up until then. It's a bit of a. It's a bit of frustrating to ride them because they just want to go and go and go. And I'm sure when we get Barney up to his four star long, that's my spring goal. I think it's in May, it's the, the try on four star long, that's my sort of spring goal. So everything's leading towards try on four star long. And this was our first little event to get back into the swing of things and it served its purpose. To be honest, I've been a bit banged up. I. I had hip surgery and abductor surgery at the beginning of December. So by saying that Barney had a good break, he had about a month off, half of November and half of December. And then luckily for me, I've got a very game Canadian rider called Bradley Champagne that does brought him back into work for me and did a lot of the hacking and the sort of foundation fitness work. And once he settled down a fair bit in December, Silva took over and helped out with his dressage. So we got a 31 which was a little bit generous, but we'll take it. I think it was fifth or sixth place, which again this event really didn't matter too much. I will say he jumped fantastic. Peter Wild was here earlier in the week and we had some good jumping sessions. And Barney is slowly maturing like, I don't know. He. It's kind of nice doing it the dressage before the show jumping because they're a little bit worn out. But he jumped a good round. He's a. He'd be one of the best jumpers that we have in the, in the stable. He's just got, he's just naturally careful and he just, he jumps really, really high and loose behind. He's. The hardest part is the ride ability. He sort of sees the jump and he sticks his head in the air and charges at it, which is. I appreciate the enthusiasm but sometimes it's a bit of, a. Bit of a handful. So I think it's not set in stone yet. But I think I'll run him again in two weeks time back at Pinetop in the intermediate. Either that or we could potentially skip that and go straight to a four star short ten days later at Chattahoochee Hill. So I'm still just on the fence whether to run him in an intermediate two weeks again or if we wait another 10 days and take him to Chattahoochee to do the foreshore. Either way, all. Everything's sort of heading Towards Tryon try on four star long. And you know, at the beginning of the year, I kind of like running the horses a little bit slow. They're not quite super fit and their legs aren't quite used to the ground that they're running on. So I see no real benefit in going flat out around these little events. And I also think for Barney's brain, he probably wouldn't do that well if you were riding him quick and fast at every cross country course. So tried to sort of put him in a little bit close to the first couple jumps and see if he'd back up. And to Barney's credit, he actually got better as the course went on. On, obviously this is the first four or five fences and this next combination supposed to be a five stride line. And with all my horses I sort of went directly and across there on four, which actually ended up being a steady four for Barney because he's got such a big jump and big scope. I think this year is going to be a really breakout year for Barney. He's still young and he's now at the sort of top level the sport, the four star level. And I mean, I've always had high hopes for him. He's got a lot of talent and he seems to be a very sound horse, touch wood. And I think at these big premier events he's really going to shine. Anyway, like I said before, he went pathetically slow around the cross country, so we didn't end up in a very good placing. But the best thing is I felt like he was, I don't know, he just feels like in a good place. Even though he's excited and fresh, he, he behaved himself well and we'll just get back to work. We've got still three or four more weeks of these slow canters, the long, slow canters to get him really fit. And then when we get back to Pennsylvania, we'll start the faster, faster gallops up, up the hills. But at the moment I think Barney's in great shape and 2025 could be a very, very exciting year for him.
Just more bits. They come to the park boathouse. That's 15A turning west and right to the narrow brush. Barney scrambles over that and then over the corner at 15C. Five more to go for Barney Rubble and Lloyd Martin.
