Speed events for pleasure horse?!?

Question

I ride english and western pleasure at breed shows, but my friend asked me to come to an open show with her. So I said yes. The show has several pleasure classes, but then they have speed events (baarrels, poles, and keyhole). My horse is a pleasure horse, but my friend wants me to compete in the speed events, and I'm not sure if I should. Do you think I should just enter ande even though I'll only go .5 MPH I should just do it for fun? Any tips? Thanks!

Answer 1

lol, i have a horse who is a GREAT gaming horse [last year we got the best barrel time in the county] but she does great in performance too. if i were you i would ride your horse like you would work your horse at home, just an excersize to expand your horizons. you don't have to try and RUN around the poles/barrels.. just have fun! maybe a hand gallop, but nothing big.

Good luck!

Answer 2

well, it would be strange for the horse, considering he/she has never been trained in stuff like that! lol, but you could easily try, for fun, and see how your horse likes it! He/she might love it, or hate it.

I would just sign up for one, and see how it goes. If the horse is fine, try another.

Answer 3

If you want to do it for fun and don't want to get serious with speed than just do it for. I ride pleasure and I day I was at my fair and A lady told me to try speed and i found out i had a natural talent for speed. That was last year but this year i am doing all speed seeing how fun it was. Maybe something like that will happen to u. Good Luck

Answer 4

yeah, just do it for the fun of it! if you try it, you might find out that it's your new favorite discipline! don't just walk, lope! barrels will be easy to lope/ trot as long as you have rate when turning the barrels, i think you should try trotting when weaving the poles, and lope key race the whole way. don't worry, you'll have fun!

Answer 5

Truthfully, that's the speed you need to start a horse on speed events. If you just blow through the patterns on an unpatterned horse, you'll start blowing your pattern! Go for it! It really is fun even if you're only going .5mph and it's something new for your horse to enjoy! Have fun!

***addition***

I get nervous too! It all goes away when you're in the pattern though. It's totally for fun, take a load off and enjoy yourself. I'm excited for you!

Answer 6

There are a lot of good all around youth horses that can do all, but they are few and hard to find....if you want to compete, like you say, just for the sake of competing, but not trying to run your horse in any way that he/she isn't used to or conditioned for..then just go have fun, but don't try to drive her like the other horses will be running, as .you just may make her incapable of doing the job that she is fitted for.

Answer 7

A well trained horse can do pretty much anything. These barrel horses you see at weekend shows that are out of it, rearing, foaming ect are not well trained barrel horses they are just horses that all they've done is run the barrels.

Personally have a stallion here that has competed in Western Pleasure, reining, cutting, ropeing, pole bending and barrels. And not just at a weekend, fun day level but at a breed level (though I admit not all at the same time)

A lot does depend on the temperament of the horse in question but horses do know the difference between asking them to do a WP canter and a run.

If he just can't / won't run fast, enter him anyway. Sounds like he has a solid foundation on him so I don't think it would damage his training or change his disposition. Go have fun with your horse, that is what it's all about.

be sure to teach him the pattern by walking, trotting through it. only ask for speed at actual events. when working him on his pleasure gaits leave the barrels and/or poles in the arena so he can learn that just seeing doesn't mean he's supposed to run at them.