Michael Barisone and Neruda were the Grand Prix Special winners on the final day of The Palm Beach Dressage Derby, finishing with a score of 69.64 percent. Barisone was pleased considering that he admitted making a few mistakes. “The first two-thirds of the ride was outstanding, the piaffe-passage tours, the trot tours. That horse’s gift is piaffe-passage,” Barisone said. “Then he got away from me a bit in his passage-canter transitions and missed some twos and a couple things like that.”

Neruda, a Dutch warmblood gelding by Haarlem x Ladalco, co-owned with Jane Duvalsky has never been an easy ride, but Barisone said he’s getting better with age. “He’s a great guy, he’s a wonderful horse. He just has to settle. To do things and do the Grand Prix is easy for him, but to deal with life is not easy. Not because he’s a jerk it’s just that everything scares him,” Barisone said. “The good thing is that he’s growing up a bit. He’s only 11 this year and this horse never had a career other than Grand Prix because I’ve only shown him Grand Prix. I kept him home. He’s an emotional horse and he’s a hot horse. I had to learn a new way to go about doing things with him.”

Barisone said that Neruda, owned by Jane Suwalsky, actually performs better at Wellington even though it’s more crowded than the Horse Park at Equestrian Estates, where the Derby was held. The open fields found at White Fences scare Neruda more than the crowded activity of Wellington. For Barisone, the victory at the Derby location was especially important. “I always had a monkey on my back because the only couple bad rides I had on him were here,” Barisone said of the Derby show venue.

Perhaps the time spent in Germany last fall is paying off. While there Barisone trained with Klaus Balkenhol. “He made me change a lot of what I did. Not so much about horse training, but about preparation. Like in the warm-up he wants me to ride the horse quiet, quiet, quiet, lots of transitions, no pressure – really good, clean riding,” Barisone said.

Although he’s maturing, Neruda still has a way to go and that was evident when a herd of ponies arrived on the scene for the leadline class that followed the awards ceremony. Barisone barely made it safely back to the barn with Neruda, but thankful all the way that the ponies stayed at bay during his Grand Prix Special ride. “I was panicked that they were going to come out with those ponies. When we went back to the barn, I almost couldn’t hold him. They were making him crazy.”

Next stop for Barisone and Neruda is the Freestyle Championships in Burbank, California where they plan to unveil a new freestyle. “The new one will blow the old one away. This one will be the icon freestyle. It’s one everybody in the crowd can sit through and that’s the idea. For me, as far as I’m concerned we have to sell the sport to the public. And when you’re in the ring, like at Devon with 5,000 or 6,000 people, and everybody is singing and clapping and swinging to the music, that’s how you sell this to the public.”

It may be worth the trip to California just to see what Barisone and Neruda have planned.