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Horse Speed Events

Learn more about the following speed events, especially barrel racing; how to train for them and improve your skills; and read news and stories from competitors who compete in speed events with Horse Illustrated. 

  • Barrel racing involves a horse speeding around barrels in a cloverleaf pattern. The fastest competitor who leaves all the barrels up is the winner.
  • Gymkhanas feature events with pattern races and timed games and is often featured at Pony Club events or through 4-H. It is sometimes called an O-Mok-See. In addition to racing barrels, events can include pole bending, keyhole race, keg race, ride and run, egg stomp, $1 bill race (aka, ride a buck), and sack race are often scheduled.
  • Pole bending involves a rider weaving in and out of poles set in a straight line.
  • Flag racing involves running a pattern created by markers placed in specific locations.

The Appaloosa Horse Club (ApHC) hosted the 2019 World Championship Appaloosa Show at Will Rogers Memorial Center, where nearly 600 of the best horses in the breed were in attendance. This marked 30 consecutive years that the prestigious event...
Barrel racers from around the world gathered on October 26–November 2 for the 2019 NBHA Open and Senior World Championships in Perry, Ga. A featured event on the National Barrel Horse Association’s tour schedule, the 2019 World Championships pulled...
American Paint Horse exhibitors pocketed a record $1 million-plus in cash and prizes at the 2019 American Paint Horse Association World Championship Show (APHA World Show), which was held September 16-29 at Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth,...
Champion barrel racer Fallon Taylor takes on a new challenge every year: in 2018, she took up show jumping. This year, she took on the Thoroughbred Makeover. Already a champion as the 2014 Women’s Professional Rodeo Association World Champion...
If you have a finished horse that doesn’t need a lot of work on the barrel pattern, the last thing you want to do is drill the cloverleaf over and over while you work to perfect your seat and...
Sometimes all it takes is a moment—a glance down at a map, a slight miscalculation—to profoundly change your life forever. It was just such a moment in January 2010 that put avid rider Amberley Snyder’s life on a new...
Is your horse a whiz at speed events, but tough to slow down when you want a calmer ride in the arena? If you ride a horse that was once a barrel or gymkhana star, he may want to...
Barrel racing is all about seconds, and you’ll do anything to scrape off a tenth of a second here and there to get closer to the buckle. The single biggest time waster is a wide barrel turn. But you...
 What does it take to win on the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) circuit? Hard work, guts, and a few good horses. And for Jackie Ganter, a family connection to the sport of barrel racing helps, too.Jackie’s mother, Angela,...
pole bending

Give Games a Go!

If you feel the need for speed and your horse is quite zippy when he wants to be, then you might have a lot of fun competing in mounted games, sometimes called "contesting.” Mounted games include events like poles,...
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