Barney Rubble competed in his first show of 2024 at Pinetop, Georgia, where he delivered a strong dressage test with improved relaxation and jumped well despite occasional focus issues. The plan is to move him to intermediate at Pinetop in two weeks, then target Carolina International three-star before progressing toward five-star events.
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This is a video for the Barney Rubble Syndicate. Well, happy New Year, guys. Barney's been down here in Ayton, South Carolina since sort of the beginning of January. We came down a little bit later than past years. We spent the first two weeks in Pennsylvania, which was lucky actually. The weather was quite kind to us up there. And we got down here mid January. And Barney was quite electric and fiery and full of energy when we first got down here. But I have to say, he's getting better and better. Like, I feel like we're putting a fair bit of fitness work into him now and he's starting to settle down quite a lot. And this weekend was his first competition for the year. I'd taken him out to the, the jumping schooling show a couple of times just to get him off the farm. But this was his first competition. It was Pinetop in Georgia. And I decided just to put him in the prelim. And like I emailed all you guys, it was just more of a schooling show for me. I went quite slow in the cross country. But this is the dressage. We were the very first rider on at 8 o' clock in the morning on Saturday. It was great. I gave him a really, really long warm up. I hopped on him for about an hour before Steph gave him a bit of a lunch. And he's getting touch wood. He's getting more and more civilized. We've sort of changed his diet around a lot. He gets heaps and heaps of food, but it's, it's not very, it's not. There's not much grain in it. Like he eats a lot of roughage and just very low energy food. Just because he's such a hyper horse and especially when it's cold and when he's fresh. He's a difficult horse, but I was thrilled with his dressage. This is. You can. This horse has got so much ability and talent. The biggest thing is getting him to relax. And these small horse trials where you sort of just rock up in the morning and throw a saddle on him, they're tough for Barney just because he is such a enthusiastic animal that he almost needs a couple of rides to sober up. So I was actually very, very thrilled with. Even though this is the prelim test, it's very easy work. The thing that I'm most pleased with is how settled he is. Peter Wild was here on Monday and he actually jumped Barney for us and that was pretty good, actually. Then Eric Dander was here Tuesday, Wednesday, and I have to say Eric's training with Barney was fantastic. It was just all about relaxation and getting his, his, him reaching down with his neck and getting Barney to take a breath. And I loved it. It was two really good long sessions where it's very easy to get frustrated with Barney because he's, he loses his concentration and Eric's got a very calm way of working him and keeping him settled. So I really got a lot out of Eric and Peter last week and I have to say the training sort of ricocheted over to the competition. We'll run Barney again in two weeks time. It's the same competition but we're going to move him up to the intermediate level which will be be good. This dressage ring for the prelims is a small arena and it's a. He's such a big mover that it's. It's hard to, you know, you feel like you're just turning all the time. You know. He's still a little bit fresh and wild in the show jumping and the cross country, but I don't know, like, I just feel like he's still wild but we're getting on with the job. And like I said, you'll see a little bit of the cross country when he's sort of throwing his head around. But I'm sort of able to try and let him go and flow up to the fences. And I mean he's a incredible jumper and he's got so much scope and power and carefulness. I can't wait till we get into the five star level because all of a sudden all his quality, you know, like it's hard to compete against the sort of fat shiny show ponies that can get around this level. Anyway, this was the show jumping a couple hours later and he's got so much scope, even when he's being a bit difficult with his head and neck and mouth in front of the jump, he just comes off the floor. He's actually sometimes a little bit hard to stay with with his position, with my position. So anyway, our next competition will be the intermediate at Pinetop two weeks time. Then we'll take him back to Pennsylvania, work away and then most likely the event after that would be the three star short at the Carolina International. And I want to just start picking off these three stars shorts and get him really experienced at that level. And I feel like I'm gonna have to start running him a little bit faster just to get the hang of or Barney getting the hang of going faster. Obviously today he's still not at peak fitness. So in the cross country. I. I tried just to cruise around and. And my biggest focus was sort of not fit, fighting with his mouth, you know, trying to jump the fences out of rhythm. And he was fantastic in the cross country. He's a. His last event was Malvern park in October. So we started out a little cautious, and then I sort of allowed him to roll on. And the bigger the jump, the better, just because it sort of backs him off a little bit. And this is a fast, fast horse. So I think when we really decide to pull the trigger and go flat out, Barney's got so much speed and a big stride that he'll be fantastic. Anyway, guys, I really think we're in for a good year with Barney. He's starting to settle down. I'm figuring him out, I'm working him out, and obviously he'd be one of the most talented horses in the barn and, you know, a bit of a handful, but I love him and I think when we get him to the five star level, that's when I'm sure we're gonna enjoy all of Barney's electric personality once it gets big and long and hard. But he's definitely improving. And like I said before, we're in great shape for a good season. And this will probably be his last ever prelim up to intermediate and three star and. And look for a long format. So somewhere this year before we take him advanced.
