I’ve got a mare that seems to be getting board. She’s acting up at the gate but runs great once in. Had her vetted and she’s fine. I raised her since she was 5 months old and I’ve always had to change up the way I work her at home because she gets board soooo fast and will start to act up. I don’t think she’s getting blown up because she runs so good once she gets in. But getting her in is awful. Someone suggested taking her to roping pen and using her to push cows or even just take her and sit on her. Just to give her something else to do. Does anyone do this and does it work? 

Obsolutely.    Give them something else to think about.  At the roping pen practice, sometimes they will let you trail out the slow ones that they don't want to rope or just ask to help bring the cattle back.  Just sitting in the arena with the ropers can't hurt either.

I typically don't work one at home.  I spend my time riding around a track / plowed field / pasture.  Since you mentioned you have to change up how you work at home...leads me to ask...how much are you working patterns at home?  Many that have issues seem to be the riders that work them at home and do lots of exhibitions at races.  Personally I think that makes a horse mentally uninterested and worried about "how many times" they are going to have to go thru.   I am lucky to have a pattern worked up out in a field with a worked track around the field.  Makes it easy to exercise on the track then slip in to work a pattern (slow or whatever speed I'm riding) and then go back out around the track.  I do have a retired gelding that started refusing the gate, but he did have unknown pain issues and I finally retired him.  

We have always used our barrel horses for anything we needed a horse for- working cattle, track cattle in the arena, trail riding, even as a pick up horse in a pinch. 

Our barrel horses are also our ranch and rope horses. 

Almost zero barrel work at home. I meant working as in keeping her legged up and just riding. 

Same here, our horses were always "all-around" or multi use horses. It kept them sharp and looking forward to each time they got a "break" to run barrels.

Absolutely. I push my longhorns around, which ironically my TB mare gets really into. It's kind of hilarious watching her make nasty faces at the girls who don't really care all that much about her ferocious self. We go over to the neighbors and jump their cross country jumps, which everybody thinks is awesome. Arena trail obstacles, open and close every gate on the place. Trail ride over the river and through the woods. Pick a lower level dressage test and test my steering accuracy. Whatever I feel like doing, we do.

I had one that someone asked me to ride that I then sent out to a friend to day work on. She was just ill and had a poor attitude. After sixty days, she was so happy to come back and run barrels.

Using them for something else is terrific for their mind -- remember, Sherry Cervi's mare Stingray was used as a rope horse (in rodeos!) and Nellie Miller's mare is used as a ranch horse working cows, etc.  Both of my fabulous barrel horses - who held their own against any and all -- were also my rope horses and my trail riding horses. One I actually showed (and won!) showmanship and reining at registered shows and 4-H.  The other was a pretty competitive Hunter under Saddle horses at breed shows.  

I agree with everyone else... something new to think about rather then the same ole same ole... Heck I get bored on barrels lol... if nothing else, riding fence is good... and do nothing but walk...

We rope on all ours as well and use them out in the pastures etc when needed.  Keeps them nice and fresh.  We’ve said one of these days we’re going to breakaway, heel, and run barrels on the same horse at a rodeo just to say we did.

All my horses were always used for everything, trail riding, pushing calfs at ropings, they knew or know all 3 events like barrels of course, strights, and poles. 

When we lived in the Valley we had a playday/rodeo every weekend and everybody that went to it their horses did it all, breakaway, roping, teamroping, barrles, poles, straight away barrels, and about every other mouth we had a fun night where we did different things with our horses instead of the normal events, like the egg race, flag race, key hole and the list gos on.. I think if your horses do other things beside just barrels they are a lot happier they dont get bored or sour on doing just one thing. Another thing to do is Team Penning on barrel horses gets them out of that zone of looking for a boring pole or barrel gets them hunting for a moving thing they get to chase around, lol.

Go find you a Playday.. Or get some buddys and go for a long trail ride.

Oh gosh... I LOVE proving to people that my horses are not JUST barrel horses.

We do poles, we show ranch pleasure, we do trail classes and general trail riding, we've  done English classes, we do flag race, etc, etc. 

Both geldings have been around cows and love them. I need to get my filly around cows this summer. 

I agree that doing something else is always good for barrel horses. But refusing the gate would concern me. That tends to be more serious than just "boredom." What all diagnostics did the vet run? For example did you have her scoped or a BAL? It's common for bleeder's to start getting much more nervous at the gate.

Are you racing at the same arena or going to different arenas? How often are you racing?  I agree with the others. Maybe when you go to a barrel race just walk in and walk out between tractor drags, but don't race, kinda change things up for that day. No racing. Just hang out. 

We have cattle so every horse here is expected to work cattle. Even my Reiner works cattle when her sliders are pulled. I’ve also taken some jumping clinics on my barrel horses. I try to do as many different things with all my horses as I can.

Mine is ridden in Western Pleasure Trail classes and Horsemanship. I also ride him in just about every English event on the flat. The sort on him. Just about the only things he does not do are reining, roping, Western Riding

Same place for the most part. I just changed NBHA districts for that exact reason. She walk in and out fine during drags. Only when we I go in to run. She won’t even walk with another horse. This place has a really really long alley. She’ll go in the first gate fine but she’ll spin around about half way down.