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Member
Posts: 10
| I’m interested if other people have this issue. My mare and I had to spend last year reworking some issues and now we are finally doing well and back on track butttt she does best on a pattern that fills the arena and has the barrels on the wall.
When we run into a big arena and the barrels are way off the fence she wants to run by them when we actually run the pattern. However I can drill on her in the same arena and she won’t do that.
Ie if I run in there and do the four barrels one way drill she does great and runs in hard, turns and heads off to the next one.
I’m ready to start competing more with her but I want to work on things that will help this off the fence issue. I don’t want to get in a habit of having to pull her around because she ran by. I just want to trust that she’ll turn when I tell her. I’m pretty exaggerated with my sitting a couple strides out for this reason but it doesn’t really do the trick on the big patterns. Ps she doesn’t do well with my touching her face much.
I just ran at an indoor where the barrels were on the fence and she did great, so tidy and ready to go faster.  |
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 A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
  
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | Set barrels up in a open field so your horse wont have to depend on a fence to turn a barrel. I have seen horses only work in a arena and they have that fence they depend on, you need to work in a open area, set your barrels at different spots, some days have them closer together and some days farther away to get your horse use to running on different size patterns. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1631
Location: Somewhere around here | Southtxponygirl - 2018-05-05 8:22 AM
Set barrels up in a open field so your horse wont have to depend on a fence to turn a barrel. I have seen horses only work in a arena and they have that fence they depend on, you need to work in a open area, set your barrels at different spots, some days have them closer together and some days farther away to get your horse use to running on different size patterns.
Agreed.
But some horses are just better being "indoor or small arena" horses. Mine is that was even though my arena at home is dirt with no walls. Once he gets going on an open place he gets rolling. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 542
| Work her around in a bonnet in the round pen, just to make sure she won't freak out.
Ride her in a bonnet 2-3 times a week just conditioning. Try her with in on in exhibitions at an arena where it's not a trap AKA barrels off the fence. Your horse may do better in a tie down but a bonnet is my preference.
You can see a lot of girl's using headgear to help them. No it is not a lack of training. Some horses in large pens just need a reminder to collect up and need a lil help staying gathered at high speeds. Examples can definitely be seen at Rodeo Houston where the barrels are set up in a tiny pattern wayyyyy off the walls. Kassie is known for using a bonnet to help Junior in those situations and I remember when watching this year someone else ran their horse in a German martingale there too.
It's not a bad thing. It is just to help them. Don't put it on them in a trap tho, only large open patterns.
Warning a bonnet or tie down will cause one to use themselves. Some horses have been taught to really use their booty so when they finally start sitting down and turning hard they become sore bc their muscles are not used to it. It doesn't mean the bonnet or tie down is not doing it's job. It means your horse got sore and either needs some maintenance or turn out time to recover from using themselves so hard for you. |
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Pattern issues when the barrels aren’t on the fence