Hooray - it’s Q&A Wednesday! Today’s Question comes from Shayna… Q: I have recently got a young barrel horse in August. I started pushing her more for college rodeo. Her style is different than my old horse. She is a free running mare that pivots around the barrels instead of slides around. She is extremely light mouthed and doesnt like to be touched around the barrels, but I dont trust her so I am on her face going to the first barrel which brings her head way up and we go wide around the first barrel and then she stalls around the others. I am just looking for pointers because I am running out of ideas and its stressful trying to figure out what I am doing wrong with her. Thank you so much. A: There are three key areas in your question that stand out to me, which we’ll explore further to come up with a solution. First is that you say she is extremely light mouthed but yet she doesn’t like to be touched around the barrels. These two statements seem a little contradictory. A light mouthed horse, to me is one who is sensitive in a positive way – meaning they are quick to soften and yield to pressure or even implied pressure (slack coming out of a rein before contact is even made for example), even at speed. This is really what we must create in our barrel horses. She may prefer to have less handling, but what’s not acceptable is her resistance to handling. It’s critical that we educate our horses so they understand and accept their responsibility to stay softly between “our reins and legs” at all times vs. pushing against or resisting these boundaries. This willingness to yield is something we start building and rewarding in slow work, refine as we gradually add speed, and are always spot checking. Our horses mental/emotional fitness comes into play here as well and is something to be considered. Essentially, a barrel horse must be broke at speed, so your goal should be to educate her to respond light as a feather and be “weightless” in your hands. (Ive posted a link below for more help in doing that!) Secondly, you say that you are on her face to the first barrel because you don’t trust her, which is like having your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. There could be a couple reasons for this problem – either she is legitimately NOT trustworthy, and isn’t going to turn if you’re not on your face, OR the issue with not trusting her is YOUR problem alone. If it’s your problem, Ive shared another link below to an article with steps that are extremely helpful for overcoming riding habits that no longer serve us on the pattern. However, if you are already overriding her and she is still turning wide, then perhaps she’s not taking responsibility for rating and turning on her own (which will certainly create a trust issue). In addition to softening, suppling and building her responsiveness to your hands, you might also really put some time into teaching her to be more responsive to your seat, which will help her rate and allow you to handle her face less. Horses by nature tend to do in their bodies what we do in ours, but to really take advantage of this and take it to a higher level, we need to further educate them to give what we do in our body even greater meaning. Often, without realizing it, we inadvertently teach our horses to ignore our “body english.” See “Using Body Language to Go and Whoa” at BarrelRacingTips for more on this subject. If she has a free-running, zippy, in & out type of style, you might try approaching the first barrel with a little more curve/arc to help her get positioned properly then really sit deep to encourage her to prepare for the turn. In addition to paying close attention to, and using your own body position to guide her as you come into the turn, it sounds like your horse needs to step up and take more responsibility for staying on track – meaning she needs more independence and responsibility on the pattern. As a test, starting in slow work, see how little you can do while expecting her to stay on pattern. FOCUS where you want to without offering much guidance with your hands. If she veers off, it may reveal another big piece of the problem - correct her, move on and study up more on the subject of creating independence below. Remember that successful barrel racing requires an equal balance of the horse knowing their job, while also being completely willing to be guided at any moment without resistance – when you have these two qualities developed to a high level, I’m confident the problems you mentioned will dissolve and be replaced with smooth, efficient turns and fast runs! It sounds like there could be a variety of issues going on, so explaining how to address them requires more space than I have here! The links I’ve shared below apply to the problems you mentioned and offer an opportunity to go into more depth. I think they’ll be helpful. :) - Heather Smith, BarrelRacingTips Selecting a Bit for the Hard to Please Barrel Horse - bit.ly/1dQCb1u Kiss Bad Barrel Racing Habits Good-bye! - bit.ly/1gL1epO How to Use Body Language to “Go and Whoa” - bit.ly/1e8Jkw8 How to Fix a Wide Turn on the Barrels - bit.ly/1m5C0GH Instill Independence and Refine Body Control for Faster Times - bit.ly/1dNsVP2
Posted on: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:35:09 +0000
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