A Malibu equestrian has made it to the top of the horse show jumping elite competing in this year’s top international competition. Jaime Barge was one of only three riders from the West Coast to qualify for the World Cup Finals held in Omaha, Neb. As one of eight people on the U.S. team, Barge and her horse Luebbo experienced the culmination of a lifetime of training and will use their experience to try to qualify once again for next year’s World Cup in North Carolina. In a non — Olympic year, the World Cup Finals is the biggest equestrian competition there is.
The 31 — year — old Barge and her horse were one of the least experienced teams at World Cup, competing against seasoned Olympians from around the world.
“That’s why it was an amazing experience to be there and to be able to experience that level of competition in that environment,” she explained. The stadium was packed and the course was the biggest, most difficult course she had ever jumped — as high as 1.60 meters or five feet, three inches high.
“You don’t get to prepare at all,” Barge described. “The rider gets to go into the ring without the horse and walk the course and look at it for 20 minutes. Then you get on your horse and go in and jump.”
Saying she’s sometimes nervous when walking the course, Barge explained her strategy.
“Once I get my plan and get on my horse, I’m not nervous anymore because I’m so focused that I don’t think about that,” she said. “We try to figure out how many steps the horse is going to take or should take. The plan is different for every rider because every horse is different. Bigger horses sometimes take less steps than the smaller horses.”
This year’s World Cup Finals course was likely the most technical yet for Barge being on a world stage. There were lights and flashing cameras and even an unexpected surprise for Barge and her horse. Barge laughed while recalling, “There was someone filming for TV, but he was hiding in the flowers. It can spook a horse.”
She set the scene.
“For starters, it was in a little indoor arena and in California we don’t get to jump inside a lot. So it was a tiny ring. The jumps were the biggest jumps I’ve ever jumped. I can say at least half the course was literally over my head. The difficulty level of the course was also very challenging. Nothing was really straightforward. You had to have a plan with what works best for your horse to jump there.”
The Malibu equestrian competes despite having profound hearing loss. She wears a hearing aid in her right ear and has a cochlear implant in her left. She cannot hear the buzzer or bells in the ring while competing, yet she commented on the disability in stride, saying, “It doesn’t affect my relationship with my horse.
“There’s a lot of non — verbal communication,” she explained. “It only makes it harder to hear coaches and stuff when I’m learning and training. Between me and the horse, it doesn’t affect anything because the horse doesn’t talk to me verbally.” The horse’s body movement and expression will tell her how he feels. “It’s about feel, sensitivity listening to the animal.”
Although she didn’t place in Omaha, Barge is more than satisfied with her performance with Luebbo. “I’m very happy. I came home and gave him two weeks off to just be in the field. He’s very happy.”
Barge’s mother Susan, who watched the World Cup, explained, “Not only is this her first time experiencing this level of competition, her horse is experiencing this for the first time too. So, it’s a big step in these qualifying classes and trying to qualify again. It’s a process. Training a horse and being a team — the whole thing is a process. They’re getting high up. How much higher can they go? Who knows?”
It’s not only about the rider’s experience,” she continued. “It’s about having a horse that can compete at that level with that amount of travel and stress and that as a team they can handle this. It’s the tip — top of the sport.”
