Kind of a spin off of my market research post.

We live in an area of the country where arenas big enough to hold a standard pattern are hard to come by.  In fact I can only think of 2 other arenas in the state that I know for a fact are big enough - and one of the is the Fort Madison, IA rodeo arena which presents other interesting factors becuase it's so big the fences end up miles away from the barrels instead of 20-30 feet, but I digress.

Anyway, I think our saddle club arena is just big enough to set a standard pattern.  It is wide enough for sure, but the length will be tight - I need to go measure in person one day when it is not freezing and percipitating.

To get the third barrel 25' off the fence and the timer line 60' off the first barrel, you will have 60' of stopping distance - which is the minimum that WPRA requires, and looking back at patterns from rodeos around here, often times all we get there between the timer and the fence.  It will not be a straight stop in an alley, you will have the width of the arena to turn off in and come to a stop.

Compared to the bigger jackpot arena's it will be tight stopping, because those arenas are limited on width but not length when it comes to pattern size.

It is not an open gate run in set up, there would be a 60' holding pen with a center gate and the timer at the mouth of the holding pen.

My question is this: If you didn't get a lot of opportunity to run on a standard pattern, would this set up attract your or detour you? 

I wish it could be open gate run in, but the location of the arena doesn't allow for that to be done safely anymore.

Bump

I'm in California with tons of standard patterns and I still will pass a super small set up because my one horse prefers standards. I've got 2 others that could care less, but I love a good standard pattern too. The 60 feet for stopping wouldn't be an issue to me, that seems fair. Not that I'm anywhere nearby, but I'd be in!

Thanks!

i think we will probably double check arena measurements and see if it’ll fit!  Might draw in a few folks anyway

I honestly don't care to seek out a race with a standard pattern. 

Lol, this is funny because I try to stay away from small patterns.

Thats all we ever ran when we lived in the Valley, back when we were just lucky to have a barrel race to go too.. I have no problem with a standard pattern..Really makes a horse hunt the barrels.

I'll run anything I get the opportunity to haul to.

That would interest me.   

Several large arenas around here run small patterns.  If there are larger patterns, I don't think most are standard. 

Plus, it gives an another gauge to someone new to your arena on how their horse clocked.

I love running in big pens.  My horse however excels in small pens.  He likes running in big pens, but he just doesn't have the overall speed, in a small pen he doesn't have to have explosive speed.  Fences don't matter either. 

I personally don't think arena size is really a draw around here.  Most of the people I've talked to are concerned about the ground and how fast it runs and that's it. If you had a special deal where the arena had a record set on standard by a big NFR qualifier or something to see if you could beat it or how close you were, MAYBE it might gain extra interest. 

For me it would not matter the pattern size set.

From my experiences putting on races, I try to set a smaller pattern. There are so many out of control riders and horses that don't know where to put their feet and manage to turn good ground into bad looking ground. The horse gets running too fast, the rider does nothing to help the horse, they are out of position when the rider tries to turn and then they slip or even fall. Then they blame us and the ground when it was their poor horsemanship. The speed that comes along with a larger pattern is too much for some. We went to setting a smaller pattern and I remember cringing a lot less while watching people run and not seeing so many out of control runs. And suddenly people were saying our ground got a lot better - go figure... 

Pattern size is not a consideration to me when I haul.

But with that said, it is kinda nice to know where your horse is on a standard set. I have an arena about 2 hours from me that I do haul to when my schedule allows, but that is the only one near me that I know of that has a standard size.

I think it also depends on what your horse runs best in. Two of my horses are not the fastest on a big pattern. One is fine on any size.

In my area it seems to be an issue that almost all of the patterns, although not quite a standard,  are on the larger side.

A group of gals just got together to start a new barrel racing club. They did a ton of research and asked for lots of feedback. This was one of the things that people didn't like. Always having to run a larger pattern. They requested that a smaller pattern be staked out.

 I like the idea of a standard set, some dont because it takes away their ability to say their horse is a "true 1d" horse or can do this or that.  It basically a puts a person in a "put  up or shut up" situation and people would rather hide behind their location and feelings to determine their horses ability rather than the clock on a pattern that anyone around the country can run.

  "But, but, the ground!"  Get better ground...

Pattern size makes no difference to me when choosing where to go run.  Ground, promptly run, % payback - that's what I choose.

Thanks for the feedback guys.  We’ll go out and take a look at it and decide what we think is best.

Yes, I understand that ground, payback, etc all probably trump pattern size - but all else equal I was wondering if it made a difference to anyone.

How far is too far off the fence? The arena is 160 wide - by my penciling that  would already put 1 and 2 35’ off the fence - that feels really far off already compared to most of the pens around here..  Folks who usually run small arenas with 1 and 2 15-20 off the fence would probably feel that 35’ is already far enough?  I’m not sure I want to pull those in anymore, honestly.  I don’t want to handicap people whose horses don’t hunt the barrels, but I don’t want a lot of complaining when 80% of them run by.

We still have last years pattern staked I think so we can measure that too.  We’re flipping it around to enter from the other end this year.

Thank your producers folks - there’s a lot to think about!