Barrel Practice.....

On Wednesday after work Leigh and I ran home and loaded up the boys and headed to Versailles to our first barrel practice. We took all three boys and they seemed just as excited as we were. We arrived at Hodge Arena around 7:15 and unloaded. To our surprise we were the only souls there!! We had the entire outdoor and indoor arena to ourselves. We got everyone unloaded and saddled up, Leigh and I worked Dually and Drifter first while Rebo stood tied to the trailer.






It was so nice to get to warm up in an arena!! Dually was a pro, he never spooked at anything, kept his mind right and never got excited. Leigh warmed him up real good, trotted the pattern a few times, and then he loped through like a complete champ! He is ready to go! He looked phenomenal and held his form through the entire pattern. He is really coming along nicely.

Drifter has never seen the barrel pattern or been to many arenas but he did a great job. He warmed up nicely, was a little skittish, he wasn’t real sure of his surroundings, but he quickly settled down. After a few trot throughs, I decided to see if he could lope through the barrels! He did really well for his first time out. We continued to work on the barrels and I know now what he needs more work on. It was a great night for Drifter.

Leigh got Mr. Rebo out, the MAN, of the farm, and he has been through this many times. However he gets real excited and only wants to run the pattern and with the footing in the arena we didn’t feel that was a great plan for him. Lets just say, asking Rebo to go through the pattern slowly was quite comical, he of course does know everything!!

All in all it was a wonderful experience. We left the arena around 9:15 and got back home around 10:00. It was a great night for all the horses, Leigh and I couldn’t be more proud of them. Stay tuned for updates from weekly barrel practice!!!