" Barrel Racing"?

Question

Does anyone have any advice on Barrel Training?anything will do.

Answer 1

I'll try to cover as much as I can :) I'm assuming your horse comes to a full stop just by using your seat, not the reins. Also make sure you can flex your horse at the poll, shoulder, and hind quarters. This is a must if you want to teach your horse to turn a barrel

Start out walking the pattern. You want to train your horse to rate when approaching a barrel. Do this by bringing him to a halt at your pocket (about 4 ft away from the barrel) with ur seat and legs and voice. Have him stand for 5 seconds, then take him around. If you get this into your horse's head, he will prepare to stop and make the turn instead of running past it in the future. Get him good and used to this, then do it at the jog. Stay at ONLY the walk and jog for a good few weeks. Do tons of exercises like flexing and bending. Some good exercises are serpentines, figure eights, rollbacks, and spiraling in and out around a barrel.

When you feel your horse is anticipating the stop, or he slows down when approaching the barrel, you're ready to move on. Walk him and jog him without stopping. Slow down at the barrel, give the command to stop, but turn almost immediately. Get him used to this. When you feel you and your horse are ready, introduce loping the barrels with stops. Soon he will understand that a barrel means STOP and TURN. Gradually add speed.

Tips - Do not work on barrels more than twice a week. This is how horses become arena sour, because they become bored of running barrels. When your horse is fully trained, you'll only want to do barrels maybe once or twice a month. When you're not working on barrels, have fun. Do exercises, go on a trail ride...do other stuff. Fully training a barrel horse takes about 2-3 years. If you ever do go out to practice the pattern, ALWAYS start and end your session by walking the pattern. That way, your horse doesn't always want to run when he enters an arena or sees a barrel. (my horse does both barrel racing and western pleasure because of this. How many horses do u know can do that? =D) Take your horses to local shows and jog or lope the barrels just for the experience. Practice being relaxed and getting your body position right around the barrels.

I would suggest hiring a trianer specializing in barrel racing to help you. Good luck and have fun with it!

Answer 2

I agree, work flexing, and bending around stuff. Also work weight transferring skills, then go a little faster in the process, you can do it!! It's hecka fun.

Answer 3

get them used to bending, go around trees and work on flexing too.
if you start with poles it will help ALOT because they'll get used to beding but still keeping thier forward motion

Answer 4

Be careful?

Answer 5

be very careful and patient.