It's important to keep your horse in the right state of mind so that they do not start to anticipate, which can be dangerous. Keep your horse in the right state of mind with advice from a horseback riding instructor in this video on barrel racing.
Hi, I'm Teri Carter of Saddlebrook Stables in Castle Hayne, North Carolina, and I'm going to talk to you today about how to keep your horse in the right frame of mind for barrel racing. When you do a discipline that involves a high rate of speed and great repetition, the horse begins to anticipate, so it's important that you keep your horse in the right state of mind. The way that you can do this is you can walk in between your barrel patterns and make sure that your horse does a nice flat-footed walk on a loose rein. This allows the horse time to cool out and to regain its breath and its composure in between your barrel runs. Another thing you can do is you can make sure that you introduce your horse to the barrel, so that way he knows what it is and he doesn't get excited or upset when you try and move him by it at a high rate of speed. You can walk the course to introduce him to whatever course that you're going to do to make sure that he's familiar with it. Then you can move into the trot to make sure he's familiar with it at a higher rate of speed, and then you can move into the canter to make sure he's familiar with the pattern at the highest rate of speed. You always want to make sure that you allow your horse time in between your runs to regain his composure, because he could get too hot, he could stress, he could colic, or something could happen to make him of ill health. If your horse begins to anticipate the barrel and starts to cut too sharply towards it, thus knocking it over, you can make the horse stop and back it away from the barrel, and then do the barrel at a lower rate of speed. All of these things can contribute to keeping your horse in the right frame of mind for barrel racing.
