NEED FOR SPEED

Speed up your barrel pattern when your horse is ready for the challenge.

- HEIDI NYLAND MELOCCO

If you know the barrel pattern and your horse is tuned into your cues and is willingly guided around each turn, you can begin to add some speed.

Here, trainer Kelly Kennedy Joseph shares her tips to improve your barrel-pattern time. After watching many riders and races, she knows where most riders can improve: at the turn. While many riders think they'll make up speed by pushing their horses to gallop faster in between barrels, it's the turn itself that will help you speed up your time.

Kelly says it's important to line up your horse correctly and have square shoulders and great body position to start the turn (see Young Rider's May/June 2022 issue). However, if you want to add speed, your cues and your horse's strength matter most at the backside of the barrel. It's your horse's hindquarter strength that will push him and help him gain speed quickly, according to Kelly. Her No. 1 tip to increase speed is to make sure that your horse is strong and can move out of the turns quickly.

Horses that are speedy when galloping straight from barrel to barrel may be beat by a horse that can maintain speed throughout the course.

"You have to leave the barrel strong," says Kelly. "Get your horse out of the turn and move with all the strength he can. If you have a horse that's fast on the turns, you'll make up time, even if your horse isn't the fastest sprinter." 

THE IDEAL TURN