Barrel racing is a controlled run away ha ha , it's amazing to me how well many women can do so well with a horse in a short period of time .
Longish story here, uninterested be forewarned. Met my wife because she was a barrel racer and I wanted to see how my horse would do. Before it was over with that was a ten year quarter million dollar mistake.
Anyway, the Angola Prison Rodeo was coming up. Being an all male prison and barrel racing being a popular woman's event they made a deal with the barrel racing association to run the event there. My wife wanted to ride in the barrel racing with her friends. OK, but neither she or her horse are in shape so I told her we would just lay down a nice solid run, don't try to win. Polished up her barrel racing saddle, found her lucky solid steel chain curb chain she had been using for years, did what little tuning on wife and horse I could do in six weeks or so and off we go to Angola.
The horse, Annie, was a bit cold backed and frisky. She wasn't used to a band playing as loud as possible right over her head entering the arena either. They scored a 90 in the Grand Entry! The barrels are ran in a cloverleaf or reverse cloverleaf pattern. Annie comes in at a dead run! My wife's stirrups are almost dragging ground and Annie's speed makes the other horses look like plow horses. So much for a nice conservative run.
I am near the second barrel and as Annie came towards it I see the problem. Her lucky curb chain just got unlucky and was hanging down. Somehow they managed to run a pattern, a very very wide pattern, and didn't foul. A slow overall time though. She was very fast but she ran all over hell and a half acre!
Hu