Hi, 

I am just getting back into Barrel Racing been about 17yrs..been awhile. Alot has changed since then in Barrel racing! I just have a few questions on 1d 2d 3d 4d. I Have horse that was started on running barrels, but long story short they gave up on him. So I am starting over with him giving him a better training. My question is I have never run in 1d 2d's or whatever just jack pots, rodeos, high school ext. I see alot of people doing the 1ds and so forth, in those how would i enter him as a beginer and then work my way up. He has alot of heart and will and i just want the best for him.

Thanks!

A lot of 4D barrel races in the Northwest have a 4D novice. I would start there before you start putting a lot of moola into the open classess. Not sure how old you are they have senior classes too. 

I think it depends what area you are in. I haven't seen any novice classes offered here at jackpots, just 4 and 5d payouts. We do have different splits for each D depending on the association so that would be important to pay attention to (i.e. half, half, half, or half, half, whole). Otherwise, when I first started barrel racing several years ago, I would look for a 5d race to have that extra set of payouts or a 4d that had the whole split for the 4d so it essentially was a paying a 5d time slot. In terms of the D, you don't enter a specific D, the fastest horse sets the pace and then the payout is determined by the splits.

Look up the NBHA in your district area, NBHA is a good starter since you want to get back to barrel racing. The D's have been around since the mid 90's, NBHA got it started, so its nothing new now adays.