Barney's back to work after injury with dressage, jumping, and pond sessions to build strength. The trainer is galloping him two miles on a synthetic track and aiming for a training-horse trial in three to four weeks, with plans to reach intermediate and three-star levels by year's end.
This is a video for the Barney Rubble Syndicate. Well, guys, since getting back to Pennsylvania, Barney's been humming along. We've slowly but surely been increasing his workload, started jumping him dressaged, started doing some gallop sets, really working on his fitness. So everything's going to plan. This is actually our first jump together. I decided to build a single jump in the indoor just because Barney's a bit of a wild man and he was quite excited to be jumping again. So having him in an enclosed place was a great idea. We've also got Barney in the pond, going to do this once a week, and I just feel like it's. Hey, it's a great way to get a little bit of energy out of him before I ride him where he sort of walks in deep water. And I also find it definitely builds a top line and core strength, which, you know, I don't think we'll see an immediate sort of result from. But over time, I do think that he'll sort of build muscles and strength, you know, over the next 12 months. So we're up to galloping, you know, once a week, or when I say galloping, we're doing these slow canters. Each week I'm increasing it by a mile. So today, Saturday, we did actually first time of two miles. I'll probably do that again next weekend and then. And then bring it up to three miles. We have a nice synthetic track, goes around slowly, and I can promise you guys he's got a wonderful gallop. I'm looking at taking Barney to a training horse trial. So I slowly got him out to the jump ring and just popping him over small fences. Obviously, Barney can jump massive jumps, but for me it's more just trying to get him relaxed over these small fences. Also start to build a little bit of a partnership in him, a bit of an understanding of all his sort of quirks and habits. I find that he's a really, really good jumper. He likes to jump a little bit with his head held high, so we've just got some reins that go underneath his chest just to encourage his neck to drop down as he comes to the fence. I'm looking at doing a training horse trial probably in three or four weeks. If that goes well, I'll move him up to prelim, maybe do one or two prelim horse trials. And I just feel like we've got that injury behind us now and we can just slowly but surely start building a partnership. And I'd sort of like to get him to intermediate and to the three star level. Later this year. Eric devander's been coaching me a little bit on the flat. As I've said before, Barney's an energetic character. I love it. He's got a huge engine and he's got lots and lots of power. So basically all my work is based around keeping him calm, relaxed, soft and supple. I'd like to thank everyone for hanging in there. I know it's been a rocky start to our partnership, but I've really got my tail up now and confident that our troubles last year are behind us.
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