In this video addressed to the "Barney Rubble Syndicate," the speaker recounts entering the one‑star short level event at Tryon after a rain‑out forced a last‑minute change of plans. He describes arriving early, the excellent footing, and using the competition as a low‑pressure training opportunity to deepen his partnership with the horse, Barney. The monologue covers three phases: dressage, where Barney’s extravagant, suspended trot and walk earned a second‑place score; show jumping, where the horse displayed exceptional scope, clearing heights well above the class standard despite being his first time in a jumping ring; and cross‑country, where his massive gallop stride and ability to handle short stride combinations impressed the rider. Coaches Eric Davander and Peter Wild are credited for assistance in dressage warm‑up and jumping. The speaker emphasizes a cautious, health‑first approach, preferring events with soft turf and good footing, and outlines plans to continue entering low‑level schooling shows to build the partnership before targeting higher‑level competitions.
Chapters
Well, this is a video intended for the Barney Rubble Syndicate. Well, guys, we finally got Barney out and about and we took him down to Tryon and it was, was perfect. Initially. We were supposed to run him last weekend at a local horse trial at Waradaka and it got rained out. So we, we slipped Barney in as a late entry. And it was a blessing in disguise to be able to take Barney down to Tryon. We got there a couple days early. The footing was perfect, the course was ideal, and it was a great week where I just spent plenty of time getting to know Barney. And I gotta say, I'm more impressed with him now than ever. Obviously I've always thought he had amazing quality, but to actually take him out to a competition and feel his power and scope and he really turned some heads. So we competed in the one star short level. Now Barney's competed at a higher level before, you know, with the last rider, but I sort of wanted to make it a little bit easy on us the first time. The dressage test is a little bit simpler. The show jumps were a little bit lower than what he can do, and obviously the cross country is the same and it's a great training event. What you're seeing here is the dressage and I mean, if you can look at just the quality of this horse's paces, the walk, the trot, the canter. To me, the thing I love most about Barney is his extravagance. He really is eye catching. He's got long legs and you can see his working trot there just has so much suspension and swing. And it's unusual to have an event horse that moves this well for the dressage. And the judges absolutely loved him. He, I think he finished second after the dressage, but very short. I think a 20. I can't remember. 27, 28. And you know, with our buildup, it wasn't, you know, more just trying to get him settled and relaxed. I hardly practiced this test and I was lucky, actually. My, my couple of my coaches, Eric Davander and Peter Wild, came down to help me on all the horses. And this was the first time that actually seen Barney working. And both of them were smiling from ear to ear. Eric was a good help in the warm up for the dressage and Peter helped me in the show jumping. And yeah, the boys loved him. This walk, ideally, as time goes on, I would need to get him stretching a little bit more in that extended walk. He's obviously got great walk paces, but I need to get him to drop his neck and Stretch down to get sort of above 8 for that movement. Cross country, you'll see in a minute. I intentionally just went quite slow being a first event. I'm really, you know, trying to make sure that we keep him healthy. I get to know him. And as much as we could have won the one star here if we went for the time, this horse is capable of some huge wins in his career. So I think these first couple of events is more sort of schooling shows where we're getting to know each other and building up a partnership feel for each other. And like I said before, it was great taking him to try. And I rode him twice a day. Even just one of the rides per day. I just hack him around the show. And to be honest, when we first got there, he was feeling pretty electric to be finally off the farm. If you think about it, Barney's been to New York airport, he's been to Pennsylvania, to the farm here and. And this is the first time that he's gone to a competition. So he was quite excited and happy to be out firing. And as you can see, I think he's going to be absolutely beautiful in the dressage. So just trying to out his next start. I think the, the big thing I want to try and aim for Barney is to run him at competitions that have really good footing for the moment. Now we're coming into summer, which is a little bit of a headache, but trying to find competitions that have good rings like this. And then the most importantly that the. The cross country's got good soft turf. So this is the show jumping. And have a look how high this bloke jumps as a rider Sitting on top of him, it's an unbelievable feeling. He comes off the ground and I almost feel his back end coming up behind my head. He is a little bit wild. Now, don't forget this is the first time we've actually had him in a jumping ring. So you can see him running, running a little wild there. See on the side there are two coaches, Eric and Peter, smiling away. But I mean, look at that. He's jumping higher than the standards. I'm going to take him to a bunch of jumping shows. What I'd like to do is see he's a bit wild in the turns there. His head goes up in the air and he. He's a little bit feisty. I want to try and train him up where he's a lot more relaxed and sort of drops his neck and takes a breath because he, he sort of almost catapults himself up into the air. It's very, very unusual to find a horse in a venting that jumps this good. Like it. I don't know, I feel like I could jump a car on him. So this was Saturday afternoon, so we did the dressage and the show jumping and then this was the cross country about five o' clock on Saturday. And it was raining, which I didn't mind actually, with the nice soft ground. And a lot of these, A lot of these cross country jumps you see that are placed close to each other. The distance in the strides between each jumper are very, very short for Barney because he jumps so big and he's got this massive gallop stride. These smaller jumps didn't really back him off. And I found a lot of the. The combinations that are related to each other are really, really steady, holding, ride, you know, where as. As we take him up the levels, the. It'll feel a bit more comfortable. But here it was four strides and it was a really short four. I come in really slow, then I almost have to lean back here. He jumps so big. Barney loves the cross country. He's. He's cross country. Scored him lightly a couple of times and he loves it. Water ditches. He's got a beautiful gallop. Covers the ground well. Very, very exciting. So we'll find Barney some, some jumping shows. I'll find him another event that's got good footing. Another sort of low, you know, lowish level event where we get to know each other and really, really excited. I think we've got a massive future with Barney. I know it was a bit of a weird start with him, but it's. The delay has been a little bit shorter than I thought and very, very excited. So thank you to everyone.
