Does Your Horse Know the Pattern?…Not so Good!

I was watching an NBHA Barrel race when at the first barrel, the rider came off. To everyone’s relief, the rider was ok, but the horse continued to run the barrel pattern. To my amazement, the horse ran the complete pattern pretty dang good…. Without the rider. I’ve seen parents put a small child on a seasoned barrel horse and let go. As the child was screaming and crying, the horse did a decent job at running the pattern.

I hear barrel racers say, “I need a trainer to put “The Pattern” on the horse”.  I think, ok…. in barrel racing the pattern is the same (given the left-right-right or right-left-left turns). Sooo, what if I took my mounted shooting horse to a barrel racing trainer and said, “Put the pattern on my horse”. Of course, in mounted shooting, there are 40+ different courses (patterns), at least four of which are used at each competition! I would probably get a strange look from the trainer.

As a trainer, I get problem barrel horses. Without getting in too much detail, I find there are usually two basic issues, 1. The horse is sour (See Performance Horses on this subject), or, 2. The rider has allowed the horse to make all the decisions and the rider basically has lost fundamental control.   When I get a problem barrel horse, the first thing I usually must do is get the horse’s focus back on me and not just on the pattern. This way, I decide when and where I want to enter the course, I can make adjustments as needed etc. without the horse balking when I give my cues.

Before I get death threats, I fully understand, and agree, that performance horses should know their job, and I also understand that you want some things to be “automatic”. However, in my opinion, the “automatic” should never override what the rider tells the horse. In other words, the rider can allow the trained horse to perform certain moves on its’ own, but the rider should always be able to shut off the autopilot and guide the horse at any given time.

Just food for thought!