Start With Control
November 8, 2011
Five basic steps for better barrels and poles.
As seasoned competitors know, a good barrel or pole run is about more than just bursts of speed. It takes a combination of speed and control. Journal photo.
From The American Quarter Horse Journal
To the untrained eye, barrel racing and pole bending might look pretty easy.
You just go out there and have your horse run around the obstacles as fast as he can, right?
Well, not really.
As seasoned exhibitors know, a good barrel or pole run is based on more than just bursts of speed. It’s a combination of speed and control.
World champion barrel and pole trainer Brad Wagner of West Harrison, Indiana, outlines five fundamental exercises based on dressage principles that help establish and maintain that control.
1. Establish Collection
In any event that you compete in, it’s important to be able to softly gather your reins and develop a light, collected feel of the horse’s mouth. Your ultimate goal is to elicit a response from your horse with the very lightest touch – almost like power steering.
When your horse breaks at the poll, he can better engage his hindquarters underneath himself, giving you more control through the turn, even as your horse speeds up.
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2. Backing
Backing is an exercise that teaches your horse to get his hindquarters up under himself. I like to see a horse willing to back up as fast or slow as I ask. To back up correctly, he should lightly give to the bit then step backward for as many steps as you ask him to. Your horse should not throw his head up in the air or set his jaw; the motion should be smooth and fluid.
3. Arcing the Body
To best bend around a barrel or pole, your horse should be able to arc his body at the walk, trot, lope or run. To teach your horse to arc, ask him to give his head and neck, then start walking in a circle with his body arced to the inside. The arc should be very slight and should be felt in the horse’s rib cage.
While walking in a circle to the left, pick up your left rein and pull gently until your horse tips his head to the inside, then use your left (inside) foot to push into his ribcage to help maintain the arc. Apply as little pressure as possible with the inside rein and leg in order to keep the body arced. As soon as he gives his head to the inside, release the majority of the pressure, but still hold.
When you master the movement at the walk and in each direction, you can advance to the trot and later the lope.
4. Moving Straight
Although teaching your horse to arc his body is important, it’s also necessary for him to know how to move in straight lines. This is a fairly simple idea, but it’s amazing how many horses don’t know how to travel straight, mostly because we spend so much time working them in circles. When you ride, focus on an object across the field or on the horizon, then ride your horse straight to it – no turning, no wiggling.
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The old law of physics rings true in barrels and poles: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Teach your horse to bend well but also teach him to travel in straight lines between barrels; it will shave tenths of seconds off your time.
5. Sidepassing
Sidepassing is one more step to add to your arsenal of exercises. Sidepassing come in handy when you need your horse to move laterally, say from left to right, but with his body remaining in a straight line.
For example, you’ve just made a tight turn around the first barrel and you’re on your way to the second barrel. But, unfortunately, your horse seems to be dropping his body a little too much to the left, and it looks like you might be cutting into the second barrel – and you might hit the barrel if you’re not careful.
What to do? Move him laterally to the right. Like all suppling exercises, you should teach your horse to move laterally at the walk, then progress to the trot and lope. To move from left to right, pick up your left rein and move your horse from left to right as you push the horse’s ribcage with your left leg. He should move away from the pressure of your left leg and move laterally to the right. His body should remain perfectly straight from head to tail.
By reversing these cues, you can move him from right to left. For example, press with your right leg and pick up the right rein to move the horse from right to left.
When you first start to train your horse to sidepass, reward him even if he only moves slightly from one side to the other.
Comments
12 Comments on “Start With Control”
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November 8th, 2011 at 11:55 am
These are how I work all my horses when I am braking them out. Great tips love them
November 8th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Great! So many of my students believe that gaming is just “go go go” so I can finally show them some proof that all the foundation work is really worth their time.
November 8th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
My horse drops his shoulder and dives for the barrels, I’ve tried everything to hold him off the barrels, he does fine at a walk trot but at a canter he continues to dive for the barrels. Any suggestions? I’ve stopped him 10 ft from the barrel and backed him up, I’ve gone in wide and out close, I’ve circled him around the barrel, nothing helps. He does side pass at a walk, can’t get him to do it at a trot or canter, he gets confused and agitated. He only started running barrels and poles this year. In poles he runs to the first pole then tries to head back to the gate, we end up stopping and then weaving, as he turns the last pole he dives into the pole and races back to the gate. ANy help is appreciated. I’ve taken him back to the basics for the winter and I’m working on collection and give. He can be a handful.
November 8th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
Teresa, sounds like your horse is out of balance. Whenever a horse drops his shoulder like that it comes back to an issue of understanding balance. I would take him off the barrels for now and go back to what the article speaks about in the suppling and lateral exercises. Work with getting the slightest bend with the slightest touch of hand and leg. As you walk down the arena or down the road or along the fence line, do shallow serpentines, in other words, ask for a slight bend right then touch him with your left leg and get him looking left and bend him left. Gradually begin to work in more of an arc, doing partial circles, then a straight line then to the other direction. Do these practice sessions 10-20 minutes then take him out and trail ride him. Use natural obstacles on the trail to practice your bends. TAke all the time it takes over several sessions – it’s worth the investment. Soon, you will be completing circles, not just arcs. Begin working in transitions up and down from walk to trot. Don’t worry about the canter yet, get this GOOD at walk and get those transitions GOOD from walk to trot and back to walk, to halt then to back. Work at softness and fluidness. Be sure your posture is helpful as well – are you straight, balanced, deep, unbraced? All this will make a difference to your horse. Eventually, he will be able to maintain balance naturally and go through all these various transitions of gait and shape without thinking about it. Then he will be prepared for the barrels and poles.
Hope this helps.
November 8th, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Nice article, will try it with my trail horses, then if I need it it’s there.
November 8th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Great article, unfortunately most barrel horses are started on barrels before they have a good solid foundation of training started. The barrel pattern is the easy part. But a lot of folks just don’t take the time to put in this part of training (I realize there are a lot of folks that just don’t have the knowledge). But from experience, if you take the extra time necessary to really get a good handle on your horse it will be well worth the effort. It will make you a better horse and partner. This way if you start having a problem you can go back to the basics and fix the problem. I would much rather take the time to do all this slow boring tedious work (as most people veiw it) and put a good 3-4 months and get this right and then put 30-60 days of patterning at first the walk, then trot then lope and then speed, than to put 30 days of riding and take a green horse to the barrels and have to drag and pull my horse around them, yes they will learn to do it, but they won’t be doing it right and when you have a problem, you’ve got nothing to fall back on.
November 8th, 2011 at 10:50 pm
Great tips! Thanks!
November 9th, 2011 at 10:50 am
I have trained my horse with all of these tips and it really does make a difference. Light in the hands and bit = powersteering which makes for smooth handling and more enjoyable for both of us and the leg cues also come in handy even when not barrel racing or pole bending. The leg cues have gotten us out of some sticky/scary situations. i seen the picture with this article before I read it and said “that guy looks like Brad Wagner” and for sure it is.
Thanks Brad-Shannon (AGCA)
November 10th, 2011 at 8:17 am
A mistake I see many young riders of barrel and pole bending horses make is to go out and practice on Saturday and want to win on Sunday. It is best to ride the horse all week on many different ways. Do not work pattern all the time. Trial Ride, work circles, work in both directions. Work with cattle if possible. When I was running horses regularly I would do the pattern maybe 3 times a week and only a day if the horse did it well. Then I would get off, losen girth and praise the horse and go do something else. They get really tired and sour if you repeat over and over when the horse is doing well. If one works pattern over and over the horse gets so he does not even want to go into the arena gate. It is good to ride the horse in and out of the gate and do other things. Ride around in the arnea jsut to have fun with your horse. Ride with a friend. Relax and ride relaxed. The horse can sense when you are uptight and it makes him feel the same.
November 16th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Nice article that hit all the spots on the training side of barrels and poles. But what about the conditioning of the athlete. My ex is an equine practitioner and a number of years ago one of our clients qualified for the Youth World. You may remember her – she is the reason the kids now wear helmets as she came off at the exit gate and hit the metal fence. Anyway, we told her dad a number of months prior to the show to begin work up and down hills to condition the muscle memory of the horse and increase his anaerobic mucles to be able to work in the absence of oxygen. The girl ended up winning the World and poles and barrels. Her dad to this day says it was because of the physical conditioning they gave the horse. They did hours and hours and hours of up and down hill every day. By the end, when they went to the World, that horse just didn’t know what the word tired was!!
November 17th, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Teresa, I train a lot of horses to go to any and all disciplines, but focus a lot on barrel racing. When you are turning a barrel, there is a “faux pas” called “falling in the hole”. Falling into the hole is when both horse and rider drop their inside shoulers into the barrel’s “space”. Some horses and riders will even do this while loping circles. Usually it is caused by the rider. When you are entering the turn, you want to make sure you keep your shoulders LEVEL, don’t lean into the turn. As it sounds like your horse has already developed the habit of dropping his shoulder and falling into the hole, you’ll want to work him while focusing on keeping your own shoulders level, and also asking him to bend his head toward the inside of the circle while keeping pressure on his side with your inside leg. It takes some time to fix a horse that is already in the habit, so keep at it! And I would be interested to hear if this is helpful to you, so let me know! Thanks
February 10th, 2012 at 6:39 pm
I have a problem my horse has been in barrels for a couple weeks now yesterday he was doing fine but today he wont go anywhere he wont move and when i ask him to go he will go and then either turn around or back all the way up to the gate and refuse to move. CAN ANYONE HELP ME???????????????????????????? i would really appreciate it.
thanks,
Nolan Gist