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 BHW New Catch of the Day
Posts: 9884
    
Location: Missouri | It's a race! I've been so busy last year trying to "train" my young horse and myself every time I enter the arena, trying to be "perfect" that I lost track of that very important reason why we do what we do. Last year I only placed twice on him.
This weekend was our first race, a 3 day race. Friday and Saturday I hit, but he did clock better than he did there last year. So Sunday...........as I was heading down the alley, I said out loud........."This is a race ya know!" Well we stayed clean and didn't have the prettiest pattern, but it was enough to get us in the money. Winning isn't everything but I hadn't even been trying. Fix what needs fixing at home and when you get to a race......................RACE! |
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  Roan Wonder
Location: SW MO |  |
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Expert
Posts: 1314
Location: North Central Iowa Land of white frozen grass | At some point in their training you have to make a race out of it or they will never learn how to do it fast. It's not called Pleasure Barrels. |
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 Expert
Posts: 5293
| Totally agree! And the reason I always keep a finished open horse around even when training lots of young ones. THat open horse lets you be free to come running from the back end.LOL |
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 Cute Little Imp
Posts: 2747
Location: N Texas | It took me way too long to stop treating my gelding like a colt in training and start riding him like a barrel horse. My sister kept telling me I was babying him, so one day I finally said "ok, we're doing this like we know what we're doing" and I haven't looked back!  |
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BHW New Catch of the Day
Posts: 9884
Location: Missouri | He's naturally fast and long strided and I just kept thinking smooth is fast smooth is fast so I was only going for smooth, lol. I forgot to ask him to run as well! It's a timed event! LOL |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 408
| You had an awesome run yesterday!!! Congratulations!!! Yellow Power!!!! |
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BHW New Catch of the Day
Posts: 9884
Location: Missouri | love2ridepre - 2018-04-23 11:37 AM You had an awesome run yesterday!!! Congratulations!!! Yellow Power!!!!
Thanks girl! |
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 Fact Checker
Posts: 16575
Location: Displaced Iowegian | |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 545
Location: Texas | My struggle is I've always ridden my whole life, have had a set back mentally due to an injury TWO years ago, and I still struggle with doubting myself. My skill/ability hasn't changed and I have to convince myself of that. I rode so much better before than I do now. Why in the world can I not get it together? I get frustrated with myself and know I should be pushing my mare and not just riding like I have no clue what I'm doing. I ride so cautious at times, and I have no idea why. I have a local series coming up in my town, so hoping going to something once a week for awhile, will help me get my fire back and help me get past the "what if" or whatever I can't get past mentally. |
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 Off the Wall Wacky
Posts: 2981
Location: Louisiana | FLITASTIC - 2018-04-23 11:18 AM
Totally agree! And the reason I always keep a finished open horse around even when training lots of young ones. THat open horse lets you be free to come running from the back end.LOL
I honestly think that's one small reason why I'm having success on my colt - WAY more than I've had on any other one I have tried to train myself.
The others were all I had so I got so used to going slow. With this one, he's the only "baby" so I have a tendency to push him a little more.
It's fun to see him figure things out on the fly and see what he can do! |
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BHW New Catch of the Day
Posts: 9884
Location: Missouri | TXBarrelRacer84 - 2018-04-23 1:18 PM My struggle is I've always ridden my whole life, have had a set back mentally due to an injury TWO years ago, and I still struggle with doubting myself. My skill/ability hasn't changed and I have to convince myself of that. I rode so much better before than I do now. Why in the world can I not get it together? I get frustrated with myself and know I should be pushing my mare and not just riding like I have no clue what I'm doing. I ride so cautious at times, and I have no idea why. I have a local series coming up in my town, so hoping going to something once a week for awhile, will help me get my fire back and help me get past the "what if" or whatever I can't get past mentally.
My ability has changed alot as I age and I'm no longer running finished horses that I can just trust 100%, point and kick. The little mare I started was really easy and a natural. This gelding however has a huge motor, didn't mature very quickley and I'm always behind so mostly I've been just working on a nice pattern and not getting left behind, but that doesn't place you anywhere except the bottom of the 4D, which is where I was every run, and that sucks.
My mantra this weekend was trust him, trust him, trust him. Then I tossed in a hey let's go for it on the last day of the series.
I look back at my video and I'm sure enough behind again, lol, but.......I'll continue to work on that while adding speed during the week.
Please don't be discouraged or doubt yourself just go for it. You can do this. While we may never be #1, we can keep improving ourselves every run and if we keep running we will stay young. Good luck at your series! |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 545
Location: Texas | Tbred - 2018-04-23 2:02 PM TXBarrelRacer84 - 2018-04-23 1:18 PM My struggle is I've always ridden my whole life, have had a set back mentally due to an injury TWO years ago, and I still struggle with doubting myself. My skill/ability hasn't changed and I have to convince myself of that. I rode so much better before than I do now. Why in the world can I not get it together? I get frustrated with myself and know I should be pushing my mare and not just riding like I have no clue what I'm doing. I ride so cautious at times, and I have no idea why. I have a local series coming up in my town, so hoping going to something once a week for awhile, will help me get my fire back and help me get past the "what if" or whatever I can't get past mentally. My ability has changed alot as I age and I'm no longer running finished horses that I can just trust 100%, point and kick. The little mare I started was really easy and a natural. This gelding however has a huge motor, didn't mature very quickley and I'm always behind so mostly I've been just working on a nice pattern and not getting left behind, but that doesn't place you anywhere except the bottom of the 4D, which is where I was every run, and that sucks.
My mantra this weekend was trust him, trust him, trust him. Then I tossed in a hey let's go for it on the last day of the series.
I look back at my video and I'm sure enough behind again, lol, but.......I'll continue to work on that while adding speed during the week.
Please don't be discouraged or doubt yourself just go for it. You can do this. While we may never be #1, we can keep improving ourselves every run and if we keep running we will stay young. Good luck at your series!
Thanks so much for the encouragement. I was 100% confident in my gelding I used to run, and he was finished. My mare is younger and not quite finished, she is who I was riding when I broke my arm and I had just gotten her so I haven't even really gotten with her to even get over the mental struggle of the injury (which wasn't that bad-I was fine the day I broke it, fine after surgery and PT, I really don't even know why it plays with my mind so much). She also has a huge motor and so I need to do the same thing, TRUST her. She's a great horse and I know if I can get it together we will be a good team. I refuse to give up and I am determined to do her justice one day soon! Good luck with your gelding and thanks again! |
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Married to a Louie Lover
Posts: 3303
| I am pretty sure we were at the same race...
You hit the nail on the head, I’ve been struggling with it too! We had a really good weekend, kept all our cans up (don’t think we’ve ever done that at a 3 day race), and after winning a little 3D money Friday night got faster saturday/sunday.
I spent the first 15 years of my riding career focusing on “pretty” and “quiet”. Getting gritty is hard! Getting out of training mode is hard! That’s why the hardest part of this game is hands down the mental part. |
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BHW New Catch of the Day
Posts: 9884
Location: Missouri | OhMax - 2018-04-23 3:48 PM I am pretty sure we were at the same race... You hit the nail on the head, I’ve been struggling with it too! We had a really good weekend, kept all our cans up (don’t think we’ve ever done that at a 3 day race), and after winning a little 3D money Friday night got faster saturday/sunday. I spent the first 15 years of my riding career focusing on “pretty” and “quiet”. Getting gritty is hard! Getting out of training mode is hard! That’s why the hardest part of this game is hands down the mental part.
Good for you! Now I'm going to have to go look at the results from Friday and see if I can figure out if we were, LOL |
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