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Gain the Barrel Racing Confidence You Need to Succeed

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Photo by Kirstie Marie Photography

Listen to this article in audio form! It’s #34 on the Barrel Racing Tips podcast.
For the latest episodes subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play.

Today, I’d like to share some excerpts from The Confident Barrel Racer, starting with a section from the introduction…

I often hear from barrel racers from all over the world admitting they struggle with self-doubt. But I know, there are many more barrel racers that struggle with confidence issues that I never hear from. Of all the positive feedback I’ve received on Secrets to Barrel Racing Success, a fair amount of it has been regarding the Inner Game chapter. Barrel racers thank me for giving them the tools to boost their confidence. I wanted to go even deeper in the pages that follow.

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How to Kick Bad Habits and Build Confidence

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How to Kick Bad Habits and Build Confidence

There’s no doubt a connection between our riding habits and our level of confidence. As barrel racers, our habits can seem responsible for either building it, or tearing it down. In this week’s Q&A video, Sara asked for help with establishing new riding habits, which she believed would help her stop tipping barrels, and thus start the process of building back confidence where it’s been lost.

The Confident Barrel RacerI made reference to a previous article titled “Kiss Bad Barrel Racing Habits Goodbye!” If you’ve ever experienced frustration when you needed to ride or even position your hand differently in a run, then kept falling back to your old ways, you’re not alone! There’s an explanation for this phenomenon, and it has everything to do with the way our minds and bodies work at speed. The great news is that it IS possible to change your ways, click here to find out how.

In the video below, I also go on to address the subject of confidence and share some unique tips for getting it reestablished in the particular circumstances that Sara has found herself in, which is SO important!

The truth is, you and your horse can have all the talent and skill in the world, but if you don’t have confidence, you’ve lost the barrel race before you even leave the driveway.

If confidence were “easy” to obtain, more of us would be brimming with it. So after many years of personal growth, I decided to share what I had learned and experienced with the goal of making a positive difference in your barrel racing, and your LIFE – in a way that only another barrel racer can. Read more

Speed Kills – How to Resolve Issues that Only Occur at Speed

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Listen to this article in audio form! It’s #27 on the Barrel Racing Tips podcast.
For the latest episodes subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play.

When it comes to training barrel horses, it seems like everything can change when we add the pressure and challenges of competition. If you’ve been barrel racing long enough, you’ve probably had experiences where it seemed like everything felt perfect – until your horse found a few more gears. Or that you could make an awesome run at home, only to have it all fall apart in competition.

While some horses have more ability to efficiently maneuver their bodies at speed than others, our job as riders is to help balance out their natural tendencies. We want to polish up what’s good and better develop the weak areas. But what about when we feel like we’ve done EVERYTHING, and things STILL come apart at speed or in competition?

With one of my horses in particular, I felt like I had left no stone unturned when it came to developing a foundation that would carry through to our performance on the pattern. But for years, we would miss the mark. It was insanely frustrating!

In this article I’d like to share WHY I think things tend to fall apart at speed, as well as how my horses and I have overcome the challenges that speed presents. As with many issues that come up on the pattern, they are often only symptoms of deeper issues. I feel as though understanding the “why” gives us insight into “how” to successfully troubleshoot. I’ll also be sharing a few exercises that have been valuable to me for ensuring there are no disconnects between my horse’s slow work and speed work, that I think will be helpful for you as well.

One of the first reasons our runs go downhill at speed is because we, OR our horses, resort to old habits that are not efficient or no longer serve us!

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