If you hold onto something long enough, it’s bound to come back into fashion. At least that’s what those of us with Hammer pants and leg warmers are hoping.

Perhaps local event rider John Williams had that thought in mind when he brought Carrick, his mount from the 2004 Olympic Games, back into competition this year. The 18-year-old Canadian-bred gelding, who carried Williams to a team gold medal at the 2002 World Equestrian Games and a team bronze in Athens, had been on the shelf for nearly two years due to a nagging tendon injury. The tendon injury had forced layoffs throughout the gelding’s career, so Williams, 44, has decided to let the horse dictate his own schedule this time around.

After three impressive efforts this show season, Carrick is bypassing this weekend’s Southern Pines Horse Trials II and giving another member of the Williams equine family a chance to shine. Sweepea Dean, whose burgeoning career was often put on hold because of Carrick’s competition schedule, will have the Olympic rider’s full attention in the advanced division at SP II.

A sweet-natured horse whose blunt-cut forelock evokes Moe from “The Three Stooges,” Sweepea Dean somehow manages to look like a cuddly plush toy even at an imposing 17.1 hands. The 11-year-old gelding is just one of many talented horses culled from Canadian breeder Doug Dean’s operation. His sire, Cozymyn, is the son of Carrick’s sire, Cozy Commander. Cozymyn is also the sire of Dana and Manny Diemer’s Cold Harbor, who will be competing advanced at SP II with Holly Hudspeth. And yet another sibling — Rebus, who is sired by Cozymyn and out of Carrick’s dam — is entered at training level with Anne Seline.

Williams came across Sweepea Dean while looking at older horses at Dean’s farm in Ontario. Only 2, Sweepea actually caught the eye of Williams’ wife, Ellen, who thought he might be a suitable horse for her ... until he started bucking.

And bucking.

“We sent him to a gaucho to fix it,” Ellen recalled. “The gaucho didn’t believe me when I told him about Sweepea’s big buck, because he was such a sweet horse. Then one day, we looked out the window and saw him spread-eagled and flying through the air.”

Sweepea had talent to spare, but Williams always had other advanced horses up and running during the gelding’s formative years. Carrick first traveled overseas for the Olympic test event in Sydney, Australia, in 1999, and has also competed in Spain, Greece and England. Williams’ other four-star horse, Sloopy, twice competed at the Burghley Horse Trials in England.

Further compromising Sweepea’s ascendance to the upper levels was Williams’ second career as a cross-country course designer, which has taken him to venues throughout the U.S. — including selection trials for the Olympics and Pan American Games.

“Sweepea’s the kind of horse that needs consistent work,” Williams said. “The others, once they were up and going advanced, I could go away for a week and get right back to work with them.”

Williams was the course designer at the Carolina Horse Park from 2004 through last fall, when he was replaced by Massachusetts-based Tremaine Cooper.

The unseating of Williams did not sit well with some in the park hierarchy. Dana Diemer resigned as director of competitions when her recommendation to retain Williams was shot down by the executive committee.

“The two most important people an organizer can hire for a horse trials are the course designer and the show secretary,” said Diemer, who had been involved with the horse park since 2002. “I don’t know of an organizer in the country who doesn’t have final say over who her staff is.”

Diemer said she suggested offering Williams a three-year contract that included a proposal to overhaul the cross-country course, which had not seen a major upgrade since 2004.

“They’re doing a lot of things now that they didn’t have money for when John was working for us,” Diemer said. “There was never enough money for John to get in there and do what he wanted to do. It’s like asking someone to produce a masterpiece with two crayons.”

Jane Murray, executive director at CHP, said the decision to bring Cooper aboard to design the upper level courses (another designer, Jeff Kibbie, was retained for the lower levels) was merely a desire to “give a new direction and feel” to the course.

“It’s a pretty standard practice to change up designers every few years,” Murray said, pointing out that Williams was hired in 2004 to replace Mark Phillips. “Riders who ride the same courses all year get tired of that, especially when you run five events a year like we do.”

Williams, however, wonders if criticism that his courses are too technically daunting might have played a role in his ousting.

“I used to get the feeling most competitors liked the idea that I was willing to go out and jump my own (course design),” Williams said. “The last few years that trend seems to have faded away.”

Williams points to last month’s Pine Top event, which saw 11 rider falls at 10 different fences on a course he designed.

“Some people thought I had the advanced coffin set up a little too hard,” he acknowledged. “I had two horses going in the advanced (Carrick and Sweepea, both of whom had clean runs). I was pretty sure it would ride well.”

Williams says his courses are conceived with the objective of each level preparing the horse and rider for the next level up.

“Each lower level has a purpose, which is to prepare you for the next level,” he said. “That system needs to stay in place, otherwise horses and riders aren’t going to be prepared for the next level.”

Linda Dreher, a local eventer who competes at the preliminary level with her quarter horse, Remington, rode the new course at last weekend’s Southern Pines I.

“I’ll be honest,” she said. “I didn’t find Tremaine’s course to be terribly challenging, but that’s not a criticism. I don’t think they should be so challenging this early in the season.”

Dreher, who is also organizer of The Fork Horse Trials in Norwood, has competed on Williams-designed courses for 20 years.

“When I first started riding John’s courses, I’d look at them and go, “Oh my goodness!” she said, laughing. “But then you ride to the occasion and you feel your horse has learned something. I think if we dumb this sport down too much — like putting in Styrofoam logs they can break through and get accustomed to — then we’re going to have a lot of bad falls.”

Williams admits it will be a bittersweet ride around the advanced course on Sweepea.

“I don’t have much interest in being out there, at the moment,” he said. “I’m trying to do just enough to keep this one going.”

Williams hopes that, under Sweepea’s pretty-pony exterior, a four-star horse is hiding.

“He is better than Carrick in some ways,” Williams said. “He’s not as light on his feet. His dressage will probably be better, but right now it’s not quite as good as Carrick’s once was.”

As for the bucking? “Only when he gets really angry,” Williams said, patting the horse’s massive neck. “Like when you make him trot with more than he was born with.”