The internet is a great way to find a good barrel horse for one’s self or buy one of the nicest horse gifts for you friend ever, and flipping through the web window shopping can give you great insight into bloodlines and builds for when you are looking locally at animals in your area. Look on dreamhorse.com, they have thousands of animals listed at any given time, and they will be parceled off into categories the novice will appreciate. You should even be able to find one in your chosen color preference! Get on forums and chat with folks, and let them know you are into the sort, often they will know the best places to be involved. Many areas have breed and discipline specialties locally and there is no better way to get hands on time before you buy a horse than to do that with some good friends in a club.

I don’t care how a barrel horse is built, as long as it can move like mad.  Often, great huge horses can’t light off and fly like a smaller, stockier one can and younger prospects will have much more life to offer than an old has been with broken ankles can.  Many conformational defects are perfectly allowable provided the horse has no issues moving, but I do tend to steer clear of a broken back pastern axis.  Even if they are fast young, the strain on their coffin joint will take too much wear for them to perform well for long.  Varus or Vargas limb deformities are perfectly fine though, and I like to think a cow hocked horse will clear it’s barrel faster in the hind end than a horse will with perfectly straight legs, a so called “barrel banger”.

Of course all of this will not work without you, a decent trainer, and a God like Farrier.  You will have to go out with your pad of paper and compare thousands of local sale horses for your chosen prize.  And you will get what you pay for sure.  Write down the pros and cons of each horse and compare them all at once at a later date, maybe a week at a time.  Then, you will need a trainer, and I look at the trainers who train winners, not riders like themselves.  You want the thrill of the ride, not someone who will insist you pay them to ride your horse and steal the glory of the win, not really caring if you champion or not.  Let’s not forget the God like Farrier; the horse will not perform well no matter what without one.   I don’t care how many years they have in shoeing barrel horses, but they better darn well be able to tell you what makes one fast and why.  Also, don’t simply take your trainer’s Farrier; too many kickbacks are paid to make that situation in your best interests.  For more information, as well as a list of questions and concerns to discuss with a high quality Farrier, you can check out this Farrier in Washington, the site is good and the information accurate.