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 Veteran
Posts: 288
 
| I am to the point where my mare is loping through a beautiful pattern. She is starting to hunt the barrels and is nice and turney. She is ready to be asked for more speed but for some reason I have a mental block and don't KICK!! My brain is just not engaging and I'm not sure what to do about it :-/ I just truly am not thinking about kicking between and to barrels. Does anyone have any tricks that have helped them? |
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  Twin Sister to Queen Boobie
Posts: 13315
  
Location: East Tennessee but who knows?! | I'll be interested to see what folks say. Good post. I need to work on hustling more too. I will say last year I started working out with kettle bells , changed how I ate on show days and I went from not running fast enough for 4D money to the mid-bottom of 3D. I started thinking clearer, and because I was a lot stronger I was more confident - which helped with thinking too- so I pushed my horse a lot more than I had been. Having to take a break for a while, but I'm anxious to start back to see if I can bump it up another notch. |
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 BHW New Catch of the Day
Posts: 9884
Location: Missouri | Talk to yourself outloud during your run. Really say "kick kick kick" outloud. I've been known to say outloud "faster faster faster" or "hurry hurry hurry". Your body will respond. Stupid I know, lol. |
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 Take a Picture
Posts: 12842
| Smooch, smooch makes my horse go faster. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 617
Location: London Ontario | I kiss and I find if you watch a friend run the same horse it will really light a fire under you... |
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 Ms. Marine
Posts: 4641
Location: Texas | Having someone yelling at you can help too. |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | Practice asking for speed off the barrels and your horse will be more willing to open up on the pattern without a lot of theatrics. You really don't want to be thumping on one when adding speed IMO. The real hustle will come later after they've learned to handle themselves better going fast. |
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Married to a Louie Lover
Posts: 3303
| Depends on what you mean by kick...
I personally, don't like to see a lot of daylight between legs and saddles hauling off and whomping them. I think it takes their air away and quite frankly, I wouldn't work either if someone was assaulting my ribs. That being said I know some do this and it works for them - the nice thing about barrel racing is there's more than 1 way to skin the cat.
I like to ride with my stirrups set so I can keep my seat down in the saddle, maintain a forward aggressive posture and HUSTLE. To me that means a driving seat and pushing/bumping with my legs, and when I can remember - smooching. I like to try to keep my hands quiet so when I do give a rein signal it's clear and concise. If we start to back off, I go for my over/under before I kick harder.
It takes practice. It takes breezing. It takes practice runs. it takes teaching them how to run and teaching yourself how to ask for it, and making sure they have the air and conditioning to do it. |
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Veteran
Posts: 288
| OhMax - 2017-04-28 11:44 AM
Depends on what you mean by kick...
I personally, don't like to see a lot of daylight between legs and saddles hauling off and whomping them. I think it takes their air away and quite frankly, I wouldn't work either if someone was assaulting my ribs. That being said I know some do this and it works for them - the nice thing about barrel racing is there's more than 1 way to skin the cat.
I like to ride with my stirrups set so I can keep my seat down in the saddle, maintain a forward aggressive posture and HUSTLE. To me that means a driving seat and pushing/bumping with my legs, and when I can remember - smooching. I like to try to keep my hands quiet so when I do give a rein signal it's clear and concise. If we start to back off, I go for my over/under before I kick harder.
It takes practice. It takes breezing. It takes practice runs. it takes teaching them how to run and teaching yourself how to ask for it, and making sure they have the air and conditioning to do it.
I understand, I'm just not the type of rider to really bang away at their sides anyways. I'm pretty subtle with my cues and I thinks that's part if the problem. I'm constantly in trainer mode with refined cues that I can't just let go and hustle her with my legs. I just flat don't move them at all. But yes it would be bumping, not drastic movements. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 380
| I don't kick. I kiss, smooch, squeeze with my legs but don't kick. They need all the air they can get when they are trying to pick up speed. I think kicking makes them tense up and take in less air. |
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 A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | I smooch and kiss all the way and then I run out of air by the time I head out of the third barrel.. I'm pooped, lol.. |
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 Money Eating Baggage Owner
Posts: 9586
Location: Phoenix | Watch a video of Sherry Cervi at the NFR. I watched the NFR one year and truly realized how much you need to hustle your horse and how much I WASN'T hustling. |
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 Sock eating dog owner
Posts: 4557
Location: Where the pavement ends and the West begins Utah | Get a wither strap that says use your feet or kick kick kick. But don't be reading that look where your going. |
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Married to a Louie Lover
Posts: 3303
| wickedstepmother - 2017-04-28 2:02 PM
OhMax - 2017-04-28 11:44 AM
Depends on what you mean by kick...
I personally, don't like to see a lot of daylight between legs and saddles hauling off and whomping them. I think it takes their air away and quite frankly, I wouldn't work either if someone was assaulting my ribs. That being said I know some do this and it works for them - the nice thing about barrel racing is there's more than 1 way to skin the cat.
I like to ride with my stirrups set so I can keep my seat down in the saddle, maintain a forward aggressive posture and HUSTLE. To me that means a driving seat and pushing/bumping with my legs, and when I can remember - smooching. I like to try to keep my hands quiet so when I do give a rein signal it's clear and concise. If we start to back off, I go for my over/under before I kick harder.
It takes practice. It takes breezing. It takes practice runs. it takes teaching them how to run and teaching yourself how to ask for it, and making sure they have the air and conditioning to do it.
I understand, I'm just not the type of rider to really bang away at their sides anyways. I'm pretty subtle with my cues and I thinks that's part if the problem. I'm constantly in trainer mode with refined cues that I can't just let go and hustle her with my legs. I just flat don't move them at all. But yes it would be bumping, not drastic movements.
Do you practice that at home? Breezing her and ocassionally making a run through the pattern? As much as you need to learn to hustle her, she needs to know what hustle means.
The more comfortable you are with it at home the easier it is at a race. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 602
| Im running into the same problem. Someone told me to breeze the horse or set one barrel up and practice running. Another option I think that would help is changing spurs. |
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Veteran
Posts: 288
| So I just kept repeating KICK KICK KICK and I felt much more confident! My husband said it was very noticeable too. She even slipped pretty good at the 2nd and I kept hustling. Considering a bad slip resulting in a bad fall was how I had my previous wreck, I'm thrilled. I wasn't scared at all! We didn't even come close to placing but I'm still just thrilled! |
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