Foundational horse training is essential to barrel racing because of the high rate of speed and tight turns involved. Train your horse properly with advice from a horseback riding instructor in this video on barrel racing.
Hi, I'm Teri Carter at Saddlebrook Stables in Castle Hayne, North Carolina, and I'm here to talk about foundational training for barrel racing. You want to always have good foundational training for any discipline, but especially for a discipline like barrel racing, because it involves a high rate of speed and lots of tight turns. The first thing you want to make sure that your horse can do is go forward readily when you ask it to at the walk, the trot, and the canter. Then you want to make sure that your horse will stop easily and give to the bit, and then back easily off of your hand. The next thing that you want to make sure that your horse can do is that it knows its lateral movements. It needs to be able to know how to side pass--both to the right and to the left--how to turn on the haunches--to the right and the the left--and how to turn on the forehand--to the right and to the left. It's very important to make sure that your horse knows how to do these movements equally on both sides, because your patterns involve turning in both directions. This is about foundational movements for barrel racing.
