How old is sue smith barrel racer

She also notes that her weekly workout strategy differs on a seasoned competition horse versus a young horse in training. He gets enough pressure on the weekends. The fourth day brings more suppling work. Which suppling exercises Smith practices during the week depends on the horse. I do a lot of these exercises to keep my horse thinking, getting his hocks down and then driving away.

Smith says one of the most common problems for barrel horses is they become too heavy on their front end. She explains that this can be caused by the rider pulling with both hands or jerking on the reins. We rate our horses, and then we ask them to go forward. It takes a lot of pressure off when he realizes that he can go that deep in to a turn and not get pushed. Again, Smith makes sure her horse is framed up during this suppling work. She uses her outside leg as her driving aid during the turn, while supporting with her inside leg.

As with the circles, she starts out at a walk and adds speed once her horse gets the hang of the exercise. Another exercise Smith uses to teach a horse not to fall on his forehand is to offset him each time she stops. I want him to elevate his shoulders slightly. It gets him tired and keeps him in condition.

Smith explains that young horses preparing for competition will need more of this type of work, but for the seasoned competition horse, conditioning exercises such as long trotting are more for maintenance. Then, when I do lope him, I lope him out. The day before a competition is the day Smith may work on the pattern with strategic modifications for the individual horse to prime him for the perfect run. Day seven is competition day.

Meet the Trainer Sue Smith of Blackfoot, Idaho, started out competing on the rodeo circuit as an amateur, winning several barrel racing and all-around championships.

She now specializes in bringing along barrel prospects and has won several futurities, as well as the Wildreness Circuit in Idaho, Utah and Nevada twice. In , she competed in the National Finals Rodeo. For more info, visit www. This article originally appeared in the May issue of Horse Illustrated.

To juggle all the facets of her career, Smith just goes with the flow. If she has a tough futurity horse, she makes that a priority. If she has a tough Open horse, it's the rodeos. Winning Nampa, Idaho Wherever my hand goes, I want my horse's feet to follow. And the only way I can get a horse that free in the front end is to have him breaking correctly at the poll. Also, I think if a horse stands up more in his turns, he handles the ground better and doesn't take up as much room getting around the turn.

I believe that wherever you look, your shoulders point that way, and I like to keep my shoulders in the middle of my horse where my balance is the best. I keep them as much over my pelvis as I can. I use rubber bands on my stirrups to make sure I don't lose a stirrup, which can drop me on my butt. But I like just my toes over my stirrup and not the ball of my foot, so rather than putting the rubber band around my foot, I put it around the stirrup, place my foot where I want it, and then just push the rubber band down to the bottom on each side.

It's a little different. Winning Caldwell, Idaho My hand position depends on what my horse is doing. If I was headed into the turn, my hand would be lifting, and it rotates more toward the barrel the further I get around it.

Here I'm leading my horse around the turn, about to ask him to leave it. My philosophy on training is to always look ahead, and that's where you'll end up. I look first at where I'll rate, then at the backside, and then at that last corner of the turn. You can be riding in a straight line and if you even tip your head, it tilts your pelvis and makes your horse move away from that pressure.

I actually use a fairly thin pad so my horse can feel that signal through the saddle. You can see here that I also use my legs to turn my horse. By twisting, I'm applying pressure on the inside of the ribcage to keep him round and bending around my leg. I train using this so my horse is really in tune to me and I don't have to think about it in a run. Winning the Reno Short Round Claimer was hauling butt when he ran this He bobbled approaching the third barrel when he spotted the guys raking the other barrels, so I couldn't believe the time!

This second barrel at Reno is off the bucking chutes a ways, and he was a little freer there. This positioning, to me, is ideal because if a horse has more room at that point in the turn, he can be really quick.

I like my horses balanced so they can run around the turn more than anything. And if a horse is turning really tight, a lot of times that's slower because he takes too many steps.

When I'm training, once a horse rates, I want him to speed back up so he's going somewhere. In this picture, I love the way Claimer's really reaching and still coming around. He's not crowding me to where I have to have my hand lifted to get through.