[montana and me3]

Originally Posted by Paints4me

Yes thats a roll back. I do them on all my horses, you can teach them in an arena or along a fence. Just trot or canter your horse up the side, check them back a little, and turn into the fence. Leave a little room between you and the fence so your horse doesn't run into it. It will get a horse turning ob his hindquarters like he needs to. Its a very good excersize and it does put a pretty good turn on a horse.

yay!... i did that not even knowing thats how you teach it!..or if it was good or not!

[Paints4me]

See your a natural and didn't even know it!!!

[horselover2005]

Making the Stretch
The first thing Martha recommends to any prospective barrel racer is beginning all of your workouts with a productive, 30-minute warmup to loosen up and relax the horse. "I ride my horses real relaxed; if they've been standing in the stall, they might be a little bit stocked up or sore. I usually start by walking some nice, smooth circles. Then I'll do stops, back-ups and go in the other direction." She advises continuing those same exercises at a jog, then working up to the lope. Before moving on to barrel work, Martha also urges you to work on "rating" your horse — controlling his pace to slow him down in turns. "I like to keep a lot of rate on a barrel racing horse," she says. To build up your horse's ability to slow down fast, she suggests doing a lot of work off the horse's rear, and rolling him over his hocks.

Martha always works the horse for at least an hour 3 to 4 days a week. However, that hour may also include dismounting and leaving the horse tacked and safely tied while she's nearby doing other chores. "The key to making a good horse is not just getting him out of the stall once a day for a short period of time," she says. "He needs to have discipline."

Pattern and Position
After your horse is warmed up, you can begin work on the barrel pattern. If your horse hasn't had any previous barrel work, Martha cautions you to start out slow. Spend the first few days just walking the pattern, showing your horse exactly where he should go. "He may get a little bored, but a horse learns so much from repetition," she notes.

Once your horse has learned the pattern correctly at the walk, you can proceed to the jog and then to the lope. While it may take you longer with your horse, as an experienced trainer, Martha usually has her horses loping the pattern within a month. "After a month of showing the horse exactly where I want to go, he's going to be ready to start loping," she says. "I might hand gallop the second month, but I won't run until we have that pattern down perfect." The horse should already be trained to pick up the correct leads before proceeding to barrel training.

When first training the pattern, Martha rides two-handed to better balance the horse. "I take my reins and spread my hands out, trying to keep them as equal as I can, especially at the slow work," she explains. "But when I'm competing, I use one hand while turning. I apply the inside rein to tip the horse's nose and bring him around the turn," she adds.

To familiarize your horse with the cues you'll be using when you are finally galloping the barrels, Martha recommends you ride in a "running" position even when working at a walk, jog and lope. In other words, you'll carry your body the way you would if you were running the horse, and ask the same thing of your horse. Martha explains:

Walking toward the first barrel, sit up a little bit and forward, leaning from your hip. Watch and aim for the pocket — the area to the left or right of the barrel where you and your horse will start your turn, usually about 8 to 12 feet for the first barrel.

Right before you get to that first barrel, sit down directly on your seat, dropping your weight. "This is the cue that the horse should start gathering up his rear end," Martha says. "When I'm on my rear end, he needs to be on his, because a barrel racing horse really needs to work off his hindquarters a lot."

If you're jogging the pattern, break to a walk — if you're loping it, drop down to a jog — to teach the horse to rate, or slow down just a bit at the barrel. "That will make his rear end get up underneath him," Martha notes. "If he goes faster when he gets there, he'll usually drop a shoulder and be out of position."

As you get further into the barrel — the "turn" area — help your horse by tipping his nose slightly to the inside by lightly applying the inside rein and holding it against the horse's neck to support his shoulder, while you press your inside-leg calf behind the cinch. "This makes him give enough room to bend or come around the barrel," says Martha.

To keep your horse balanced and from swinging his rear end out too much, hold the outside rein against his neck and your outside leg on his side at the girth.

Look toward the pocket of the next barrel as you come around the backside of the first. "When you're turning and looking, your body weight turns with you, cueing the horse." In addition, Martha says to continue encouraging your horse to bend by maintaining pressure with the inside rein and leg, and balance with the outside rein and leg.

As you finish the turn and leave the barrel, line up for the second barrel. Martha says, "As you go to the second barrel, ride in a straighter line to the side without giving as much pocket at this one, because it's a different angle altogether. The pocket should be from 4 to 6 feet from the side of the barrel." You should approach your third barrel the same way.

Again, sit slightly up and forward as you proceed in a straight line to the next pocket, and then sit down and deep, and repeat the same cues as for the first barrel. "It's 'whoa,' turn, look and line up," she says.
Martha stresses that when working at slow speeds, your horse should never touch the barrel. "Horses are going to do little things wrong and you're going to touch a barrel now and then in competition, but you should never hit one in slow work," she says. If you do, you haven't positioned your horse's body properly: He's shouldering in, coming into the barrel, or leaving a barrel too straight and you're over-reining. To correct this, you need more inside leg and more support from the inside rein.

Martha also warns riders to be careful not to lean into the turn. Keep your back straight and your shoulders level. "This keeps the weight in the middle of the horse," she says. And leaning throws the horse out of balance, creating soreness.

Refinement
Martha emphasizes correct position first, then as the horse progresses and develops confidence in his work, gradually adds speed. "My big thing is 'slow and right is better than fast and wrong,' so I show it to the horse over and over again, slow," she says. "If you're really careful, a horse should never know mistakes."

"The two most common faults," says Martha, "are not enough bend and not enough rate. To correct either problem, go back to the exercises walking circles." A horse gallops to the barrel and needs to slow down a bit to make that turn and push to the next one.

If a horse doesn't respond as quickly as he could to his cues, Martha suggests more work on the problem area. "A horse learns from repetition, so I go back and do it over." But she also recommends a bit of a break now and then to keep from burning your horse out. "I might go on a trail ride and find a couple of trees to walk around — something similar to barrels — or I might do a pole-bending pattern, something just a bit different to give him a change."

You may also need to refine your own performance to make sure you're giving the right cues and staying balanced and out of your horse's way. A common problem, according to Martha, is that many riders condition their horses but don't have themselves in shape.

You've got to keep your body in condition, too, if you expect to stay with your horse at racing speeds. Martha — who says she doesn't have time to go to the spa — keeps herself fit by "walking along the fence and doing some bending exercises right there, standing at the fence, raising and lowering my legs like a ballet dancer." She also stretches on the horse, taking her right hand and bending to touch the horse's right hip, for example.

And You're Off!
Although horses progress at different rates, Martha says it usually only takes a few months to get a horse ready to compete. Martha cautions that the excitement of showgrounds can put a horse off at first, so give him as much at-home "show experience" as possible: Hang flags around your horse's pens, play music in the stalls or recordings of show/rodeo noises. "It's better for a green horse to first hear the National Anthem at home than at a rodeo," she adds.

And when you get to the show, Martha says that bringing the right attitude can help a lot: Don't expect much from the novice horse's first show experience. Learn from your mistakes, and don't dwell on the bad runs.


Its long but it might help u. Found it on some web site.