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Regular
Posts: 59
| My mare is still working on the pattern. We do compete but I feel I need to wait on that and keep working on the pattern. The thing is is that my mare gets bored and refuses to work her best. Should I just take her off the pattern for a while and just trail ride? Her pattern is not the best her 2nd barrel is bad and I want to keep working on it but like i said she becomes bored easily. I ride about 3 times a week of this helps. Should I have one ride dedicated to barrels and the rest trail riding or what? |
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 Expert
Posts: 1718
  
Location: Southeast Louisiana | You could do funnel barrels and two patterns back to back, there are a bunch of ways you can work on your turns without just drilling on the cloverleaf pattern, which a horse can get bored with. Just change it up whenever you normally do pattern work. |
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 Shelter Dog Lover
Posts: 10277
| There are lots of ways to work a horse off the pattern. Set up a couple of tires and work on the fundamentals of a turn, circle trees. My trainer gives me drills to do that do not involve going thru the pattern. I work on the drills, go ride around, gone back and do a little more if necessary. Find a good person to take some lessons from. It is good you are listening to your horse, you should make a great team. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 509
| What is she doing on the second, break that down and work on that,I set barrels up in a large square for a while, work them on a flag if you have access to a cowtrac or flag,cattle, dry work,work them on your trail rides. |
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 IMA No Hair Style Gal
Posts: 2594
| IMO a horse doesn't refuse to work their best. It likely goes back to your horse is not sure what to do. The only way your going to fix her mistakes is if you work on them. There is a difference between working one and hotrodding one. I would look at what is causing you to have bad barrels. Is it lack of rate, is it a result of spitting the bit? Those things can be integrated into whatever riding you do, but I would also continue barrel work as well. You have to find the balance between what works for your horse. However, if you never work a pattern you will never get better on it either.
For every thing you do fast, you must end slow until your horse looses the pumped up feeling. So if you make two runs at 50% and your girl is still amped you must walk for however long it takes for that feeling to go away. These are some things I learned from the amazing Ed Wright. It goes back to being able to correctly interpret what your horse is telling you. I would definitely dedicate one ride to barrels. I normally ride 5 days a week. One day is a show, one day is a fun day, one day is for conditioning, the other days I work on patterns and drills. I make it a point to make a run weekly. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 617
| magic gunsmoke - 2016-09-24 6:00 PM IMO a horse doesn't refuse to work their best. It likely goes back to your horse is not sure what to do. The only way your going to fix her mistakes is if you work on them. There is a difference between working one and hotrodding one. I would look at what is causing you to have bad barrels. Is it lack of rate, is it a result of spitting the bit? Those things can be integrated into whatever riding you do, but I would also continue barrel work as well. You have to find the balance between what works for your horse. However, if you never work a pattern you will never get better on it either. For every thing you do fast, you must end slow until your horse looses the pumped up feeling. So if you make two runs at 50% and your girl is still amped you must walk for however long it takes for that feeling to go away. These are some things I learned from the amazing Ed Wright. It goes back to being able to correctly interpret what your horse is telling you. I would definitely dedicate one ride to barrels. I normally ride 5 days a week. One day is a show, one day is a fun day, one day is for conditioning, the other days I work on patterns and drills. I make it a point to make a run weekly.
I agree with this. Horses don't decide not to work their best. It is very possible your horse isn't giving 100% because shes sore or not feeling well. If thats not the case then go back to the basics. Make sure you have super solid foundation. Theres a million drills you can do with and without barrels, many I'm sure you can find on google or youtube. Do LOTS of slow work and slowly add speed...don't keep adding speed unless the last gear was acceptable. Trail riding is great for barrel horses too, so keep up with that. Good luck! |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 509
| Charmaine James has a test in the beginning of her book to judge your horses level of being broke, work on your foundation example if your horse doesn't rate make sur off the pattern he collects and stays soft, if he isn't switching leads work on that off the pattern break it down, I like working some cattle if you have access to them. |
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Training a barrel horse