My friend has a lovely appendix that has been used for barrel racing. He is tall, athletic, and moves beautifully. Her daughter is getting out of horses and is wanting to sell him. Anyone ever retrain a barrel horse for eventing? He does flatwork nicely (in shank bit of course) but he gets crazy hot when they put him through the pattern. They haven’t run him into the ground though, he is still very sound and runs barefoot. He is great on trails. Thoughts?
Have you seen him jump? If he isn’t schooled to jump maybe run him through a free jump chute and see how he takes to it. Like they do with warmblood youngsters for sales videos. If he takes it in stride that’s a good thing.
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Great idea! He hasn’t jumped yet to my knowledge.
It’s probably a lot like retraining a race horse or polo horse. If they learned that the right answer is always Go Faster, he may take a bit to understand there are lots of right answers. And he may think barrels are things to go around, not over but theoretically, he should be able to change careers. Lots of horses do!
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When I was doing the hunter-jumpers way back in the dark ages, we got a horse in for sale that had been a former barrel horse. He was a delight to ride and turned into just the most amazing and fun and kind jumper. He got the name Say Please and it fit him perfectly. And man could that horse turn and jump. 
The thing I’d worry about is that barrel racing can be very hard on a horse depending on the rider and so I’d be looking at soundness concerns. Also look for signs of a fried mind - the good ones love to run a pattern, but some get very anxious going into any arena gate and become hot.
Eventing wouldn’t be my first thought for a former barrel horse just because the sort of horse that is usually chosen for barrels isn’t going to have the movement for the dressage. He might also have trouble relaxing when entering the ring. But as a jumper, I think the skills are actually pretty similar. If you like him, he sounds like a fun project to take a chance on.
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We retrained a gaming horse to Western Pleasure. He was fine with slowing down. It took about a year of consistent work (and a professional trainer helping with the ideas and one month riding the horse himself) to turn the BSP into a WP and Showmanship horse. Horse was 10 when we started, and continued to improve over the next nine years of his 4-H life. He was always in the top five even against some heavy hitters on horses they took to Congress and World.
As others said, it’s a matter of starting over with the basics. And in our case, we NEVER put him into a gaming class again. It took too much work to slow him down, to have him speed up. I still have him and ride him now and then even though the 4-Her is now a junior in college —that’s what Granny’s with horse farms do . . .he’s a lovely riding horse --very smooth. But I have two others ahead of him in the “keeping fit” category that I use for hunting and archery.
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I borrowed a friend’s ex barrel horse for my lesson program last summer. She was an amazing, kind, quiet lesson horse. Never put a foot wrong and was ok with barrels in the ring.
However…
The first show we took her to was the county fair. She was perfect in the flat classes but got a little confused when it was time to jump. I think the whole… going through the gate alone into a big open arena brought back some memories. Thankfully it was one of my competent teenagers on her and once she got her to the first jump it like clicked that she wasn’t barrel racing and she was fine!
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I was wondering about his movement but I saw a video of just some basic trot work and he is a decent mover. He won’t impress the warmblood crowd by any means but I am just looking for a novice level and below horse and I really think the movement part is there. His legs look great and she said they have not been very hard on him. I think the daughter got him and then just got into other things. But the ingate thing does concern me a bit. I’ve seen how hot they can get as they go in and trying keep it under wraps in a much milder bit might prove a challenge!
When a barrel horse is getting hot in the chute or at the gate, the bit is certainly not what’s keeping it under wraps! I’d think NOT using his barrel bit would help, but if he’s not brain-fried he should understand the difference between going places and getting ready to run the pattern. They don’t spend all weekend at a rodeo acting like Z in 5* warmup. :winkgrin:
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I’ve never been to a rodeo so I have no idea! I do know most western horses seem to have manners down pat. But I have no idea what happens in warm up or after. But going back to what Foxglove was saying…I could see where it would be tough to switch back and forth from gaming to WP for these guys. But wouldn’t going from dressage to show jumping to xc be kind of the same?
I attended a college that had a rodeo team, so I casually watched them train and saw a couple rodeos, jackpots, etc each year. I had a friend who ran her horse in a plain snaffle and had gone out of her way to train her horse that they always walked in and out of the arena on a loose rein, no drama. Most people were willing to trade some silliness for speed, but those horses were (generally) solid citizens around the farm the rest of the time, going on trail rides, doing trot sets, loping circles, standing tied to anything, anywhere, any time, no matter what else was happening. Kind of like just because a TB might get silly going to post, that doesn’t mean it acts like a fool back at the farm.
I would guess that gaming to WP is a more drastic transition than dressage to XC. And if I had successfully transitioned a barrel horse (spurs = go) to WP with a spur stop (spur = slow down/stop) and wanted the WP training to stick, well, those two activities become incompatible when the aids conflict. In eventing, you expect the same response to the aids in all the phases.
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It all depends on the retraining and the rider. If you approach your first events with out the I gottabustouta the box, remembering that the first fence is usually kind, all should be well.
“It’s all about the rider”.
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Great story! And what a gorgeous horse!
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