Barrel Racing Alley Fights

This is probably the most common complaint I hear – “my horse won’t go into the arena when I ask him to – we always have a big, fat fight.”

The problem here generally is that your horse is arena-sour – you’ve practiced so much he hates going into the arena. In other words, you’ve over-practiced him, and he can’t stand barrel racing anymore.

See, you knew I was going to say it was your fault, didn’t you?

Before we start troubleshooting this particular problem, I need to remind you that the day of a show is not the time to be schooling your barrel racer. If you’re not ready to compete when you get up the day of the show – stay home.

Do some more instruction, training, whatever you need to do – but do it at home – don’t drag your barrel racer to the show and decide that’s a good place to hold a training and discipline session. It’s one thing to make some minor corrections as needed during the course of the show, and quite another to expect everyone to come to a screeching halt while you embark on a 90-minute training session.

Now, about alleyway fights. If the problem is that your horse is arena sour, and just doesn’t want to get in that arena one more time, you can address it by laying off the practice sessions.

Once your horse is trained on barrels, you shouldn’t practice more than once a week or so to keep him tuned up. Instead, take him on trail rides, or switch to pole bending or something else that doesn’t represent stress and work to him.

There are also a couple of other reasons this could be happening – your horse could be getting over-excited and adrenaline-pumped at the anticipation of competing.

My suggestion here would be to spend a lengthy amount of time warming your horse up outside the arena before it’s time for your event – walking, trotting, loping, and responding to leg cues – to refocus him.

If possible, have another rider accompany you to the gate, if you can do so without endangering them – perhaps even leading you to the alleyway. If that doesn’t work, go home and work with him on the proper way to enter and exit the arena.

A third reason for alleyway fights is that you’ve been using a crop or whip much too much in your training sessions. If you’ve read Barrel Racing Secrets, you know why I don’t believe in this type of discipline – and in this case it’s called negative reinforcement.

If you’ve been pounding on his butt to force more speed out of him during every training session, in his mind, every time you enter the arena he’s going to get whacked.

Let me ask you a question – if someone whacked you every time you went into an arena, would you want to go into the arena without a fight? That might give you an idea of why your horse fights you every time you start up the alleyway.

Chapter 7 of Barrel Racing Secrets explains in greater detail what negative reinforcement is all about, and how you can make corrections to avoid this problem in the future.

Tags: barrel racing, alley fights, horse fights, horse training, barrel racing training, barrel racing tips