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Barrels can be a lot of fun, but is not something that you should just decide one day you're going to "try" by running your horse around the pattern. It's a fast-paced, dangerous sport that puts extreme torque and stress on a horse's joints. You need to condition and train for it before you try to actually run the pattern.

The biggest thing you need to make sure you and your horse have down pat is bending and rating her speed. A good barrel horse isn't necessarily the fastest one, they're the one that is able to give a quick burst of speed, then control it when you're coming into the turn. If you go into the turn around the barrel still at a dead gallop, you will be lucky if all you do is hit the barrel or turn wide. Worst case your horse goes down on top of you or snaps a cannon bone. Neither situation is uncommon in the barrel world, unfortunately.

To start out with, start working on getting your horse to bend around your inside leg on tight turns at the walk and trot. You can practice the barrel pattern at the walk, trot, and a slow lope, focusing on bending and balance. Vary the pattern while you're doing this. You don't want the horse to get the pattern ingrained in their head. A lot of people make this mistake and end up with an out of control horse when they're running. This is how people break their legs on barrels.

Also work on being able to easily rate her back within the gaits. You should be able to slow her by the shift of your weight in each gait. Work on getting her really light on her downwards because when you're actually running, if she gets her adrenaline going, you might lose a little bit of the edge you have when you're doing concentrated schooling. You want to make sure you'll still have control.

A good exercise to get the point of rating across within the barrel pattern is to start the pattern at a lope, lope towards the first barrel, and a few strides before you get to the turn, come back to a trot, trot around the barrel, then pick up the lope again and lope to the next barrel.

Until you can do all of these things things easily, you should NOT run her around the barrel pattern. Especially if she really likes to run. You do not want to get in an accident. I know it probably sounds like I'm exaggerating and being overly dramatic, but I'm not. I am not a barrel racer. I went to a few gaming fun-days on my old pony and "ran" through the games at a slower pace (letting her tell me what she was comfortable with. She was a sensible older pony, so she wouldn't push things past what she could balance). I went to maybe 3 or 4. I saw a couple horses fall in that time, and the only pro barrel rider there broke her leg when the young horse she had in training swung in too close to the barrel and slammed her leg into it.

I would also highly recommend finding someone with experience training barrel horses (actually training, not just running them at the pattern) for some help.

Like I said, barrels can be a lot of fun, but you need to approach it like the serious sport that it is. You wouldn't trot a horse with no training over fences into a jumper ring and expect them to course at 4'6. You can't expect a horse with no training in barrels to just come out and run.

*steps off of soapbox*

When training my barrel horse i set up the pattern. you never ever break the pattern!!! step 1. walk the pattern for a month!!! and by walking i mean where u would rate her speed/check her up stop for one moment. do this at all three barrels.step 2. a month at the trot!!!! same thing stop her for a moment where you will check her in the pattern. more like stop and go so as soon as she stop move her forward. you just r teaching her that ur going to be checking her up there. Step 3 the canter!!! same thing as before but just check her at the barrels. remember when running barrels as u check her u should be planting ur butt back in the saddle too and lean forward coming out of those barrels.. now at any point if u feel shes not getting it slow it down. a well trained horse is a winning horse!!!

now for you as you work on the pattern you keep your eyes on the barrel as you turn into the barrel you should be looking for your neck barrel, etx.

is your horse ready for barrels??? will he move away from your leg pressure??? i use my inside leg[closes to barrel] to put pressure on my horses side to keep him off the barrel if hes to close. when i train my horse he is trained to legs cues to the maxxxxxx!!!! i use my legs more then my reins when working him normally. my barrel horse will plant his hindend and spin when i put my butt down in the seat working off my legs. not sure if i explained it so you can understand just ask if you need clarifications