Remi
Working on picking up that right lead. She loves her left! This is typically what it'll look like on a horse who favors one lead over the other. Every time they pick up the wrong one, break them down into a trot, ask for the other. Also set their shoulders & bend them in a C shape the of the lead you want.
Once you get it, lope on that lead for a while. On this mare I just did a few circles. She needed the release.
Sometimes it gets really hard for them to pick up one lead or another after they've only picked up their favorite a majority of their lives. Be patient. Their muscles have to strengthen on the lead they aren't used to being on.
Sorry for the bad video quality.
"Remi" 15 yo OTTB
This is how I like to start one. Shes a very on edge horse so I do ALOT of walking with her. Walk through, trot through, attempt lope through to see what they can do. It usually falls apart, and that's okay! Running barrels is not as easy as a finished horse makes it look.
This is her first day on the barrels(with me anyway). 3rd ride for her and I together. Not sure what all this horse knows but she is pretty broke so I decided to take her thru a set. Honestly, she trots thru pretty nice like someone has done this before with her. 🤷🏼♀️ She really likes to pick up her left lead and not her right but going to third she switched to her right lol she just needs time
She hasn't been rode in 3 years so I'm going to take it as a win! It's the small things.
As we all know, giving colts time off is not ideal but when it rains for a week straight it happens. So we restarted Monday after a few days off. Going to keep him an extra week because of this.
Here's a snip of Mondays ride on Bourbon. His bad habit of running sideways is still there, but getting more controllable.
I'm documenting this to see how it all comes out. I wonder how he'll be by the time he goes home mid-may. I'm hoping this is just a behavioral issue that will resolve with consistency.
I've had him for exactly 30 days now. Did a full colt-restarting on him. Now for the fun part. Rides, rides, and more rides. Longer rides.
We're going to get him adjusted by the chiro and see if that helps!
Note my round pen is in fact round, the angle of my phone just makes it look square
First ride out of the round pen for Bourbon. His thing is to take off sideways and run fast to try to scare us. Anyway he comes back to you eventually so it's all good.
😂 this is training colts.
4 yo Owned by Janna
Little video from yesterday of Bourbon!
He was a little broncy our first few minutes in the round pen but he settled nicely. If you watch closely you can see how unsure he is of things by how jumpy he is. I'd rather take my time with him and get him to trust me than to ride out a bronc and rush things.
I think he's ready to take for a ride tonight.
This is a 3 min video of working the barrel pattern on Shiner.
I was working on getting his left lead coming out of the first barrel.
This is typically how I slow work barrels:
1 trot through, 1 slow lope through, 1 faster lope through to put it all back together.
On the trot through here you see he was trying to lope so I had to slow him down. He shows that he's excited about working the pattern and wants to go fast, but I don't want that if I don't tell him to go that speed.
In the slow lope thru he misses his lead change, and then is super stiff on the second barrel. So I go thru again and trot up to the first barrel then to ensure he picks up the left lead I do a circle. I don't do this all the time but if they are having lead issues I will. This is usually where I have to break things down the most. Then I put it all back together the last lope through.
Last lope thru- he gets his lead right out of the first barrel and makes a nice pattern.
Desensitizing Bourbon to the rope & tarp.
Was pretty impressed that he didn't care about the tarp since he was funny about stepping over the hose lol
He passed the test yesterday meaning he accepted the bit, didn't care about the tarp, doesn't care where I touch him with the rope, roped his neck & belly and he didn't flinch, and didn't care about being saddled.
Today I'll rope his feet, saddle, ground drive him, get a feed sack full of something heavy and tie it on the horn, to get some weight in the saddle and try to get a reaction out of him.
*this horse is broke, I'm just restarting and trying to find holes in training to make him husband safe. It's no surprise he's flying through what takes some horses weeks, within days* I also just like to do these things because you never know what a horse is scared of, that could potentially injure you as a rider.
Owned by Janna
Doing a exercise to quicken up feet and change leads. This horse is getting his lead change super late at the second barrel, which makes it harder for him & not so smooth for me. I also feel like when they do that their feet get so stuck that they knock it easier.
This was the first time for him. You can see his right circles are way better than his lefts which is funny because on the pattern he's the opposite.
Since this us his first time it isn't the prettiest.
Horse: Smart Shiner Bock
In my program I like to do a mix of exercises throughout the week. For example, Monday-4 mile trail ride, Tuesday-Harder drill, less time riding. (What I would consider this as)
Wednesday-Off, Thursday-Barrel racing drills, Friday-2 mile trail ride etc.
Was a beautiful productive day!
I ran 3 miles, I am trying to do as many miles as the horses 😂
Shiner & I rode 3.5 miles.
Kota & I rode 4 miles.
Kota, Shiner, & Paisley got their first baths of the year. 🧼 🧼
Did the circle "drill" I forgot about on Shiner today, that i seen posted in Barrel Horse News!
He was already warmed up, did 10 mins walking, 5 mins trotting working on flexing nose & bending rib cage, then we went to loping and did this. He was still fresh as you can tell. This drill is nice because it is challenging enough that they have to think about it and calm down, without it being over complicated! This is this guy's first time through this kind of drill, so his pockets weren't super small like a more seasoned horses could be.
New favorite! Will post article in comments.
We didn't get to go to the barrel race to expo today, so we just did it at home!
Horse: Smart Shiner Bock
Working on:
🤍Softening rib cage coming into first
🤍Getting flying lead change after first barrel not on second barrel pocket, like in this video.
🤍Loosening up third barrel & not cutting off the pocket (we accomplished that from his previous lope through)
If there was one thing I could change about myself was how bad I was leaning coming out of third. 1 I had my weight on the outside so he wouldn't drop in and cut the pocket off, but 2 I should of fixed myself before coming out of the pocket.
Anyway! Love riding this guy.
Smart Shiner Bock
Week 3 of pattern training last summer.
I'm excited to expo him! Maybe this weekend we'll get a chance🏇
I find horses as some sort of therapy that I'm addicted to. So no matter what the weather is I always catch myself saddling up and going for a ride ⛄️
#AlmHorseTraining #trailriding #blizzard
Smart Shiner Bock
Coming 4 yo
I put roughly 60 days of barrel pattern and fundamental work on him last summer while his owner was busy busy.
I've got the chance to ride him a hand full of times the past couple months and decided to see if we remembered barrels today.
I'd say he does!
Excited to expo him some this year as long as Drake says it's okay 😆
Working on some collection with Shiner ✨️
Shiner was getting pushy with some other bits and not moving his shoulders around so we went to a twisted wire locked d-ring and are putting the softness back into him.
Could I have done this in a regular snaffle? Yes. But there would of been a pulling game I was trying to avoid. Sometimes you gotta play with bits and see which ones feel good in your hands and work well for the horse.
(Don't judge my stirrups I was riding in my husband's saddle 😂)
