Barrel racing is fleet, fast, four-footed fun

Barrel racing might be the most exciting 15 seconds.

A horse and its rider gallop at full speed to a barrel. They circle it as fast as they can — without knocking it to the ground — and then sprint to the next barrel. They circle that one and then dash off to the third barrel. Once they circle that one, it is a full-tilt sprint back to the finish line.

Barrel racing requires a combination of speed, skill, training and extraordinary horsemanship. The rider and horse must act as one at breakneck speeds and through the tightest of turns.

“I think it’s really fun to watch people enjoy their horses and enjoy the sport, and go fast. That’s the whole name of the game, to go fast. It’s like Indy cars on dirt — there’s tight turns, riders are going as fast as they can, and it’s a horse race,” says Ariel Weinman of Brighton.

Weinman is the club secretary and barrel racing chair of the Illinois Boots and Saddle Club in Alton. The club holds about a dozen equestrian events a year at its outdoor arena, and it also rents out the arena for other equestrian events.

It Is What It Is Productions will hold a barrel race at the arena in Alton on July 10. On July 13, the Illinois Boots and Saddle Club will have one of its own.

“The horses themselves are athletes, and watching the horse and rider come together as a team — it’s exciting to watch them do their best,” says Cindy Scarato, owner of It Is What It Is. She lives in unincorporated St. Louis County, near Valley Park and Fenton.

Barrel racing is a rodeo event, along with such sports as bull-riding, steer-wrestling and saddle bronc riding. In rodeos, it is only open to women. But at local events such as the ones coming up here, it is open to everyone, of all ages.

That includes children, who compete in the Peewee Division. In the Illinois Boot and Saddle Club, the Peewee Division is open to anyone 10 and under. And some barrel racing events also have a senior division, which is for riders 50 and older.

Some begin barrel racing when they are as young as 3. Scarato started at 5. She was raised in a family of barrel racers — her aunt, Norita Kraus Henderson, won the world championship in 1966. Now Scarato’s daughter does the racing for the family.

The horses used in barrel racing are often quarter horses, which are particularly adept at the sport; they can sprint fast and turn quickly — and they enjoy doing it, Weinman says.

A good-quality barrel race horse can cost around $15,000 or $20,000, Weinman says. One was sold at auction in 2009 for a record $68,000.

Typically, owners do not start to ride a horse until it is 2 years old, Weinman says. After six months of riding, they can start training it specifically for barrel racing. That takes around another six months, so a horse does not start to compete until it is 3 or 4 years old. Then it can keep going until the owner decides it is time for it to retire.

There is money to be made in barrel racing, though not a lot of it — at least not at the local level (Jayda Tolle, from Brighton, is currently competing on the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association circuit). At the IBSC events, 80% of the contestants’ entry fees is paid out to the winners.

The entry fee for the Peewee division at the July 13 competition is just $5. For the Youth Barrels division, it’s $20; and the cost is $30 to enter the open division (the open division has an additional $500 in prize money on top of the 80% of the entry fees).

Scarato says that for a weeknight event, such as the It Is What It Is competition on Wednesday, she expects to have about 50 to 100 entries. A weekend event, such as the IBSC one on July 13, might see 100 to 150 entries, all from the general area.

It Is What It Is also produces a much bigger event every Labor Day weekend in Jackson, Missouri, northwest of Cape Girardeau. That three-day event is a qualifier for the American Rodeo Contender Tournament, which bills itself as the richest single-day event in all of western sports.

Contestants come to the Labor Day races from a large swath of the country; Scarato says she expects there to be around 300 or 400 entries each day.

Barrel racing events are known for their family atmosphere, she says.

“(In) the barrel racing community, everybody roots everybody on. It is a competition, but everyone is sharing with one another because they want to see you do your best,” Scarato says.