When great barrel horses come in all shapes and sizes, what overlapping factors in their conformation and physical characteristics seem to prevail over the test of time in the game of barrel racing longevity?

There are about as many different builds of barrel horses as there are bits. And, Lord knows, a 14.2-hand cowhorse can clock right with a 16.2-hand appendix horse. But what about when it comes to staying sound? What kind of conformation could lead your horse to give you the most years of performance? 

Good question, considering that a couple of teenaged horses still running tough today have totally different bodies. For instance, Brittany (Barnett) Sporer’s tiny NFR mare, “Paint,” was a former trail horse by a Paint stallion out of a Smart Chic Olena/Colonel Freckles mare. She was 15 and sound when she won every round of the Montana Circuit Finals Rodeo recently. Contrast her with Dona Kay Rule’s lanky, race-bred High Valor (“Valor”) – headed back to the NFR at 15 years old.

Dr. Terry Swanson of Littleton (Colorado) Equine Medical Center has spent nearly 60 years keeping performance horses sound. He’s not only a past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, but has been Lisa Lockhart’s trusted vet for much of her unprecedented $3.5 million career. He feels the most important aspect of conformation is overall balance. But that, of course, is subjective, he said.

“There are some aspects of balance you don’t know by looking,” he points out. “It’s only by watching a horse being ridden under saddle that you can gauge a horse’s center of gravity underneath the rider’s center of gravity.”

Nobody’s better at balance than Lockhart, who was able to keep the legendary Louie (half-cow-horse bred) going for many years. Dr. Swanson, a roper himself, praises Lockhart for the way she can read a horse and thereby is never forcing anything. That helps lead to longevity. 

Read: Meet the Longest Lasting ProRodeo Barrel Horses of All Time

Like Dr. Swanson, most of the barrel racing GOATs I spoke with also prefer balance when it comes to conformation. Of course, the ground is the ground.

“Bad ground is what ruined my horse,” says Kelly Yates, who was winning the world in 2001 when the big-hearted Firewater Fiesta – a two-time WPRA Horse of the Year coming off a reserve world title – fell in the first round of the NFR. The grey mare was virtually done after that, at 8 years old. “The road, too, leads to a lot of unsoundness,” Yates continues. “Air on my trailer has helped tremendously.”

Yet, many horses of the 1980s and ’90s lasted a long time despite bad ground and long miles. How did horses like [Kristie Peterson’s] Bozo and [Deb Mohon’s] Brown run tough over a decade as the only horse in the trailer, with scant help from vets and no trailer suspension or Soft Rides?

“They threw away the mold when they made horses like Bozo or Brown,” says Peterson, who won four gold buckles on Bozo.” I don’t know if it’s conformation or heart or just God’s blessing. All I ever did was run cold water on Bozo’s legs – that was his only maintenance, pretty much. They do it for the love of it, for darn sure.”

Peterson still remembers the day a racetrack expert walked up to Bozo to measure his conformation. The old guy was dismayed at how poorly Bozo’s proportions matched indicators of racing success.

“Bozo was not built to be a racehorse,” Peterson says, laughing. “He was built to be quick and turn, with shorter cannon bones, shorter pasterns and a big gaskin.”

Bozo never did get hurt. Peterson points to how his shoulder and hip angles matched, and he had a shorter back with a longer underline for a good stride.

“Here’s what I really think,” says Peterson. “Horses that lasted a long time took care of themselves.”

A great equine chiropractor once told Peterson he thinks the bond between a rider and horse has more to do with a horse being able to take care of itself than anything else.

“Bozo and I knew each other so well,” she relates. “We didn’t get in each other’s way. If a rider doesn’t cause any problems for a horse, it can use its own style to take care of itself. Like, at Calgary when they floated the arena, Bozo never took a bad step and it had nothing to do with me. I’m up there just praying he doesn’t fall down or get hurt. And at the Finals every year, he would know after he turned first whether he’d need to use his hind end or his front end a little more in the other turns. They figure it out, after a while. It’s love of the game that causes them to figure it out. Or they’d just quit.”

Bo Hill, who’s been starting elite barrel horses for four decades, is surprised they don’t seem to last as many years anymore, considering the advances in veterinary medicine.

“It’s a fact that horses are going faster now and that might mean more chances to hurt themselves,” she surmises. “They’re running way faster on a standard pattern than they were 20 years ago. I’m not taking anything away from yesterday’s horses. But I think pedigree is seeping through. We used to either buy a former racehorse or make our husband’s rope horse. Today, they’re truly bred to run and turn. It’s possible the new pedigrees in athletic barrel horses are making them a little more fragile.”

Like Peterson, Hill thinks longevity ultimately goes back to heart.

“Those long-lasting horses probably had aches and pains, but were just tough,” she says. “They were gritty individuals.”

Too, she’s noticed that today’s barrel horses seem bigger than ever. A few days earlier she’d been riding around the 377 Arena in Stephenville, Texas, on a Valiant Hero colt that stands 15.3 and weighs 1,150, while other gals were warming up huge colts by The Goodbye Lane and Winners Version.

“In the old days, barrel horses had balance,” she says. “Old-school horses had more bone than today’s line-bred horses.”

Meanwhile, Sherry Cervi got eight years each out of the compact Hawk and Stingray, plus four gold buckles before they retired. She echoed the same sentiment about heart.

“They have to be gritty,” Cervi says. “I’ve won on so many different-made horses that I can’t say that’s a factor. I think what leads to longevity is the way they take care of themselves, because they know how to run on the different types of ground. They’re smart about their feet.”

Cervi’s won on several horses that had widely varying conformations.

“There might be a horse that doesn’t look like it should run barrels but it does, and can stand up on bad ground,” she says. “It’s about not just using their hind end – they need to be able to use their front end, too, to help them stand up. At the end of the day? It’s about the size of their heart.”

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