Be A Team Player

Who’s fault is it anyway? 

We have all been guilty of pointing the finger, to find something other than ourselves to blame. But any great, I mean really GREAT athlete, is a true team player. They accept their faults, know their weaknesses, know their strengths, and use all of that knowledge to become an even better player. “Personal accountability” 

Over time, and futurity colts definitely increase that learning curve, I’ve come to realize that it’s not the ground's fault. (Say whaaaaattttt?). It’s not the horse's fault. It’s not the guy standing in the middle of the alley way, while they are calling you in’s fault. And it’s definitely not the arenas set up fault. All these things point back to YOU. 

As a rider/trainer/jockey, you must be able to make proper judgement calls. You also must be able to have at least 50% control over that horse at all times. So if the ground is bad, YOU can do a speed check or whatever adjustment the situation calls for  and YOUR horse actually listen. YOU must be able to calmly walk around that guy in the alley way, and start your run around that small obstacle. And if the arena is favourable to the left, YOU must be able to look at the setting, and make a judgement call to give YOUR horse a favourable go at his run going to the right.

This also stems back to performance quality. If you go to a barrel race on Sunday, and you haven’t rode your horse in 10 days because you couldn’t take 20-60 minutes of your “life”, to at least exercise that animal. Then who’s fault is it, when you run a second off your expectation. 

This same animal also sustains an injury during this run. The first response we are accustomed to hear, is that it was the grounds fault. However, out of 60 girls only your poor animal who hasn’t seen a human hand in 10, 20, 30 days.... is the only one who sustained an injury. Now I’m not saying ground doesn’t play a factor in the speed game. We can always go faster on good ground. BUT in this instance, this is a YOU fault, and your horse is paying the price. Fitness matters. We don’t preach fitness for you to not benefit from it. Because with fitness, you strengthen muscles, lungs, tendons, ligaments.... everything, which reduces the risk of injury.  I was told a saying that stuck with me once " Great horses don't have bad ground, they win on it all". Now that I have learnt more, I can say, great players make poor situations work to their advantage. Because that great horse, is under a great management, and a rider who can make adjustments, to allow that athlete to perform at its best for the conditions its under.

We talked genetics on improving your odds of success. Well in this instance, I’m saying you need to decrease your odds of injury. And with fitness, you again are INCREASING your odds of success. 

And here is where barrel racing becomes a team sport. It’s part 1- you, and part 2- your horse. Part 1- you is the biggest part of this team. Ever hear the saying, your only as good as the horse your on? Semi true. I would like to change this slightly by saying “your only as good as the ability and skill you train into your horse”.  Everyone is under this mundane impression that talent is “god given or gifted”. Again not quite the truth. Every person or animal does have natural ability to a certain degree at certain aspects, BUT talent can be trained. Whoa right? You can train a horse to run, stop, flex, whatever. So why not train the talent skills you want to see in a superior athlete, into your athlete. If you train the same habit daily, pretty soon that habit becomes almost second nature. Think about when you started walking, it’s a skill we all need, but in the beginning it was ugly and you fell down.... a lot. The same thing happens when you train skills into your horse. They are ugly at first, and then pretty soon, your horse holds its head a certain way, backs up with certain cues, and looks pretty “gifted”. 

There is a reason GREAT futurity riders producer winner after winner after winner. Because they know exactly what skills to develop in order to create that winner. 

So before you take old bay to the back 40 after you run or jerk on one's face, take a minute, sit down and reflect on the entire situation. What could YOU be missing? Sometimes things happen that are just plain and simply out of your knowledge bracket. This is where we are so fortunate as barrel racers, that we can ask anyone for help. Majority of the top trainers are happy to share their knowledge with you. And generally, they have rode more numbers than you, and stumbled across this issue before. Sometimes it just takes a different approach to find the result you are seeking.

Remember your horse is a reflection of you, and if he isn’t doing something, it’s probably something that has been missed in his training program. And it’s your job to find it, add it, and help that animal develop into the best of its ability.

“Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations” Tom Brady