Barrel Racing - Part 3
By MoMoz
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31st May 2010 •
6,665 views
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2 comments
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Part 3: Training Your Horse to Barrel Race
Now that you know the basics of barrel racing and how to affectively ride the pattern, many of you are probably wondering, “Now how do I start my HORSE on barrel racing?” First you have to build your horse’s fitness and flexibility, because your horse needs both of these to do well in competition. Then you need to introduce your horse to the barrel pattern and how big his pockets need to be. Then you need to teach him how to respond to your cues, and finally, solve any problems that popped up along the way.
Building Fitness and Flexibility:
First off, your horse needs to be conditioned well and fit. Most of you who own horses know how important it is to condition your horse to the best of his physical abilities. If you don’t know what a typical conditioning program is, I will give you a simple overlook of one. If you ride your horse regularly then a simple way to keep him fit is by starting your ride with 15-20 minutes of walking followed by 2-3 minutes of trotting, then 1-2 minutes of walking and back to 2-3 minutes of trotting. After that, switch and do it again the other direction. You must work your horse from both sides for him to be fully fit! Now, when it comes to cantering, most of you probably go into a canter straight from a trot, but in barrel racing, your horse needs to know how to come from a dead stop into a full gallop. So a good way to practice that is by cantering from a dead stop. So after your walking and trotting, come to a stop then pick up a canter. Canter for 1-2 minutes each direction. But of course, don’t bore your horse mix it up with trot/canter transitions, stirrup less trotting, or walk/canter transitions. This builds the horse’s fitness. The next step is to build strength, muscles, and flexibility.
There are many, many different exercises you can do with your horse to build muscle, but the ones most important for barrel racing particularly are exercises that build strength in the hindquarters. If a horse doesn’t have hindquarters power, he cannot barrel race. Lots and lots of backing up really helps. Make it part of your daily routine that you practice backing up. Not only does this build hindquarters strength, it also teaches to horse to sit down on his hind end, which is very important to turning the barrels. When out on the trails, doing lots of uphill work is another great exercise. Trotting uphill and galloping uphill especially builds strength. Other exercises you might want to try are rollbacks and spins (both are reining moves).
To build flexibility, you obviously need to practice circles. Walking, trotting, and cantering in large and tight circles is the easiest way to practice this. Figure eights, spirals, and hairpin patterns are other ways to make your horse flexible without doing way too many boring circles. A hairpin pattern is a pattern performed at playdays. It consists of only one barrel at the far end of the arena and all you do is run up to it, tightly turn around it, and head back.
Now that your horse is physically ready to start his barrel training, the next step is to teach him the pattern. This is called Patterning.
Patterning:
Basically what Patterning is, it is when you walk the barrel pattern over and over and over and over again. Seems pretty boring, but it sticks in the horse’s head. The next time you start approaching the pattern on him he will think, “Oh great I remember this! We turn around this thing, then head across the arena to the other one, then go to the one over there and turn around that one.” Then you barely find yourself steering! Also, make sure you are approaching the first barrel at the proper angle, because this could cause problems later if your horse doesn’t learn now. If he starts approaching t the wrong angle, correct him! That is a huge part of patterning as well.
Now unfortunately, some horses when they approach the pattern start thinking “Oh my goodness not this again…” and will start trying to cut corners and get around the barrel as quickly as possible. This is a result of over-patterning. You want to pattern them to where they remember the pattern, and then you move on to the next exercise. The next exercise would be the one I mentioned in Part 1 when I was introducing pockets. Now that your horse knows the pattern, to prevent him from cutting corners like an over-patterned horse, you must develop his pocket. Circle him around ONE barrel over and over turning very wide, but not too wide, for this wastes time once you get into competing. This teaches your horse EXACTLY how far away from the barrel he needs to be.
Now it’s time for the hard part, teaching your horse to respond to your cues when YOU ride the pattern.
Teaching Your Horse to Respond to Your Cues:
Let’s look back on Part 2 and see what cues you need to give and what they should make your horse do. You need to check, so your horse needs to know how to sit down when you sit down in the saddle. You need to turn to get to point 2 of the barrel so obviously your horse needs to now how to turn (hopefully he would know how to do that by this point XD). Then at point 2 you sit deep in the saddle and prepare your barrel rein and your horse must sit down on his hindquarters when you sit deep in the saddle (I know he already did this when you checked, but this is kind of a reminder that he needs to stay on his hindquarters). Then he needs to respond to when you kick with your inside leg to keep him away from the barrel. Finally, he needs to be light on the mouth so that when you tip his nose in at point 3, you don’t have to be pulling his nose in, you can just tip his nose in.
Now, what if he doesn’t know how to do these things? Again, there are exercises you can do to help this. Let’s start with checking. Like I mentioned earlier, practice lots and lots of backing up because this teaches the horse to sit on his hindquarters when you sit deep in the saddle and pull back slightly on the reins. Just simply backing in your daily exercise routine is enough to teach your horse how to sit down when you check, and sit deep at point 2. Now, your horse needs to know how to move away from pressure when you kick with your inside leg. This can simply be accomplished by practicing side passes and leg yielding. Most horses are already soft in the mouth, but if yours isn’t then I would recommend researching further for how to fix that.
Those exercises are just simple fixes for if your horse doesn’t already know how to do all of that. But if he does already know how to respond to cues like that, then after you teach him the pattern, you are ready to make some final touches, practice, and start competing! Part 4 is all about the final steps and what to do once you get serious in barrel racing! |
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halfbrokehorses
the previous owner of my horse bought him for barrels but he wasnt quick enough on his feeet :( but i hope to give him another go and try it out myself :)
the previous owner of my horse bought him for barrels but he wasnt quick enough on his feeet :( but i hope to give him another go and try it out myself :)
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Jun 1, 2010
• 4,349 views
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Southern Devil
I run barrels for extra cash, and i've been doing this for a pretty long time, so I'm just gonna say this, (I am NOT trying to be mean or trying to correct you, im just adding this for a little advice. so don't take this the wrong way!:) some abrrel horses don't need to be checked, it sometimes depends of the rider, like if i let my barrel horse take the turn the way he wants to, he'll keep it tight, but not too tight, but if i try to fight with him it just messes up his whole run! But if ur horse likes to blow the turn the YES you need to check them, and just like MoMoz said, a lot of leg can help with it too.
I run barrels for extra cash, and i've been doing this for a pretty long time, so I'm just gonna say this, (I am NOT trying to be mean or trying to correct you, im just adding this for a little advice. so don't take this the wrong way!:) some abrrel horses don't need to be checked, it sometimes depends of the rider, like if i let my barrel horse take the turn the way he wants to, he'll keep it tight, but not too tight, but if i try to fight with him it just messes up his whole run! But if ur horse likes to blow the turn the YES you need to check them, and just like MoMoz said, a lot of leg can help with it too.
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Aug 12, 2011
• 4,322 views
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