Just when I think it might be safe to venture onto Youtube again I find these links. Barrel racing is one event I truly have a love hate relationship with. I love doing it myself. We grew up doing high school and Little Britches Rodeos and had a blast. A good barrel horse is a tremendous athlete and a poorly trained one is a catastrophic wreck waiting to happen. I hate seeing what the sport has become. It's less and less about riding and more and more about ruining good horses.
My first question about modern barrel racers is: When did knowing how to ride quit being a requirement of the sport? I’m not asking for stellar equitation, but I would like to see your ass in the saddle more than it is out of it. I’d like to see someone riding with their seat and quit hanging onto the reins like they’re a ski rope. HINT: If you keep pulling the reins it slows your horse down.
I’d also like to see horses rate without wearing bits that could be used to torture secrets out of a hardened spy. Whatever happened to running in snaffles? Or mild hackamores? Why these hack-a-gag-a-piece-of-shit bits?
Flog, flog, jerk, drag, flail, kick, jerk, bounce, bounce, flog some more, jerk and spur, turn too late, horse is a maniac in the aisle.
Yep, looks professional to me…not.
More of the same. The slow motion only accentuates the crappy hands and flogging feet. Does no one know how to sit quietly? I remember watching Wendy Newman set the world record in pole bending and she barely moved the entire ride. I don’t think her ass ever left the saddle and her horse, Cyclone, simply melted through the poles. She barrel raced much the same way.
What happened to quiet hands= quiet horse?
Here’s another hint for the can chasers: When your horse keeps plowing barrels because he’s dropping his shoulder in and pointing his nose out he’s telling you a few things: your hands suck, your seat sucks and you’ve over schooled the shit out of him.
Here’s another tip: If your boot toes are pointing at the ground then your ass is usually out of the saddle. Can no one run a horse and keep their heels down? I see ten year old pony club riders jumping courses and doing hunt paces and they never lift their heels. Yet mature “cowgirls” can’t make it to the first barrel without slamming their foot through the stirrup, dropping their toe and choking that horn like a 17 year old boy that has just discovered masturbation and online porn at the same time. It makes no sense at all.
And this kind of shit just pisses me off. If your horse is so burnt out that he does not want to go in the area then get him another job and be done with it. You haven’t handled him right or he wouldn’t be so fucked up. A good horse with a solid foundation can do speed events for years, provided you don’t beat the hell out of him at every run, or jerk his head off or hurt his back by bouncing around like a fat ass sack of meal. Your horse is refusing because you cause him pain every time you take him in the arena.
WTF is with all the bucking? Don’t you train your horse before actually running it in an event?
Most of these people deserve to be bucked off because they ride like shit and they’re stupid.
How can this sport gain respect when you have a section of participation that rides worse than Barbie on a Breyer and creates horses that become mentally unstable?
