Horseback riding should be FUN — for the student, for the horse, and for the instructor. New arena exercises challenge us and drive away boredom, especially during repetitive beginner lessons.
But we think there’s a lot of value in traditional patterns and games. Exercises such as figure-eights, pole bending, and the good old barrel race can be used to teach essential skills to riders of all levels, especially when you put your own fresh spin on them.
Don’t shy away from classic exercises — just make them work for you!
Barrel racing is one of our favorite versatile activities. We can set the arena at the beginning of the week and use it to teach horses and riders at every level, whether they ride English, Western or bareback.
These lessons include:
#1 - Level Up rounds
The basic barrel race can easily fill an hour when you run it in rounds. This is one of our most popular activities for small groups of equal ability.
Students run the cloverleaf pattern three or more times, with a new challenge added in every round. (TIP: Have your students alternate between starting with the left and right barrel, so your school horses get worked in both directions evenly.)
For example, here are a few challenges that can be ridden entirely at the trot:
Round 1: Ride the whole cloverleaf in posting trot.
Round 2: Ride the whole cloverleaf in two-point position.
Round 3: Ride the cloverleaf in sitting trot without stirrups.
Round 4: Ride the cloverleaf in posting trot without stirrups.
Round 5: Your choice of seats, but students must add a downward transition and walk at least three steps after every barrel.
You can keep time and record the results after each round using a notepad or smartphone. Combine times or award points for the order of finish in each round to determine the overall Barrel Champion.
Teaching a private lesson, or working with students who would prefer not to be competitive? Make the lesson all about the rounds themselves, with the goal of completing all three to five successfully.
#2 - Play with patterns
Each round of your race can also present a different pattern for students to learn on the fly. Start each clover with a different barrel, or ride left turns around all three barrels in one round and all right turns in the next.
One of our favorite variations is to add a full circle around each barrel. This tests balance, bend, accuracy and impulsion, especially when ridden at the trot or canter.
#3 - Change it up
Another simple way to add variety to a basic three-leaf clover is to include changes of gait. Run a race where students must ride around one barrel in a walk, one barrel in the trot, and one barrel in the canter. If you really want to challenge them, require the gaits in reverse order, so they have to walk the entire run home. (This is a great control exercise for spicy ponies!)
Navigating the tighter turns of the barrel race provides a natural lesson in half halts and rating speeds within each gait as well. Once our Green Level students are proficient at rating their trot, we’ll ask them to ride around each barrel in “turtle trot” and accelerate for the straightaways.
#4 - It’s all about that bend
Even Red Level riders can feel the effect of bend on their horse’s body as they steer around each barrel.
We often use the cloverleaf pattern when teaching Blue and Orange Level students to influence their horse’s body and ask for correct bend.
If they have a habit of falling in, they can pretend each barrel is a cactus — you can add a ring of cones around the barrel to emphasize this point!
Advanced students can practice steering with their outside aids by maintaining balance as they ride full turns at the canter. This skill can be applied to a follow-up jumper course full of inside turns and rollbacks.
#5 - Use the clover to conquer diagonals and leads
A traditional barrel race requires at least one change of direction — which means keeping track of posting diagonals and canter leads.
This makes the barrel pattern invaluable for Yellow through Orange Level students, who need a lot of repetition to make identifying and changing diagonals and leads second nature.
Once students have had several opportunities to practice riding untimed rounds and changing diagonal or lead, raise the stakes by running a race with time penalties for turns ridden on the incorrect leg. This works even with private students if you time multiple rounds and ask them to beat their own time.
#6 - Big Kid Barrels
If you have the pleasure of working with students over a long period of time, they may have tried all your barrel racing tricks, and be proficient riding the pattern at the canter or gallop. Time to add obstacles to the mix!
We love placing a small jump in the middle of our cloverleaf to challenge students to hold a line, jump off an angle, and land on a specific lead. You can easily modify the exercise for beginners by replacing the jump with a ground pole or reducing the speed.
#7 - Horse swap
Let’s say your students want to race, but one student is riding an ex-mounted-games pony, while another is riding a lumbering old draft cross. How can you make this exercise fair?
By turning it into one of the most valuable lessons of all: learning to adapt to different styles of horses.
We try to include horse trading in group lessons as early as Red Level, provided that we can make safe horse and rider combinations for everyone.
This introduces students to the idea that every horse rides a little differently, and puts the responsibility for success squarely on the rider. You can’t blame the horse for your last-place finish when he was also ridden by the winner, and you had a turn on the winner’s horse!
Horse swaps are exciting occasions for most students and should be used as the grand finale at the end of the ride. If your students are new to trading, spend some time on warm-up and practice with each new mount, and keep your barrel race slow.
#8 - Clover of Doom
Another group activity with a high degree of excitement involves incorporating the barrel pattern into a drill team exercise.
Our students love the Three-Leaf Clover of Doom, in which three riders begin a cloverleaf simultaneously, but each rider starts with a different barrel and performs their own individual pattern. The goal: for all three riders to finish at the same time without breaking gait, and of course to avoid collision!
We keep most of our group lessons to three or four riders, which works perfectly for creating a cloverleaf, but you can ride the same exercise with larger groups by creating columns.
These variations have allowed us to set up barrels and create educational, entertaining lessons for many consecutive years
If you’re ever feeling short on inspiration, just ask your students for ideas!
Learning to create patterns is a valuable mental skill, and with a little practice, your students will love the opportunity to choose their own barrel racing adventure.
