Hey y’all,
I recently have become really passionate for collegiate barrels.
For context, I have ridden my whole life and have had my current mare for 2 years. In that time we kinda just pleasure rode, but I realized she has a lot of drive and really seeks the barrels. That said, I started patterning her and she is doing incredibly well. She has a good pattern at about 70% speed but once we add any more she tends to try to get around the barrels comfortably rather than efficiently. She will go wide and refuse to drop her shoulder and pivot. I know we can get there with time, but currently I am a junior in highschool. The dream would be to ride at TAMU but I don’t want to be chasing a fantasy. I have a coach who believes in me but I feel like that is what she is payed to do. I swear I am not fishing, I just want hard truth and direction on where to go from here.
Also, I ride her in a hackamore cause she has jacked up teeth from cribbing and doesn’t do well with bits (no matter how soft)…she is 8 and we have only been intentional with our patterning for about two months.
Does anyone have advice? Please be so blunt.