This Saturday we hurried over to Pontotoc when we found out Amberley Snyder was hosting a clinic for barrels and poles! We only learned about the clinic at the last minute, which didn’t give my sister enough time to sign up, but the arena was free to observers and we made sure we were two of them.
Amberley was so encouraging as she taught all the young riders who attended. There were 21 students, she knew them all by name and coached each one of them individually with her full attention giving them careful details to help them succeed.
We arrived later than we had hoped, at the time set aside for lunch, but Amberley continued to work with each group of students for two hours before stopping for 20 minutes to grab a sandwich. If this wasn’t enough, she stayed 2 additional hours after the clinic was scheduled to close to finish working with all the students, before spending another hour with everyone for awards, signatures, and pictures.
The clinic itself was a blast. There were riders at all levels and it was fun to watch as they listened and applied the principles being taught.
There is so much more that goes into running barrels than I ever understood. It was very cool to see Amberley help the riders make corrections to avoid tipping barrels and maintain control of their horses.
One of my favorite exercises she employed was stopping and correcting the horse’s position at each barrel. Many of the horses wanted to let their shoulder fade, which caused them to either motorcycle lean or turn too early, losing the energy and power from their back feet and not lining up with the next barrel. This lead us to the following quote which I think applies to all disciplines and horsemanship in general.
These horses are hot. The best advice I was given was to cool them down. Right now they’re thinking at a million miles per hour, we need them thinking at ten miles per hour, then every step they take will be perfect. That way their feet will be able to keep up with their mind and we can avoid an extra step to the side or one step too far.
Amberley Snyder
Her patience with everyone was inspiring and I cannot say enough nice things about her and the clinic she put together for everyone. I can’t wait for next year!