Everyone knows the intricacies of training a barrel horse are many.
But what about training a stallion?
Reliance Ranch’s Laura Mote is at the reins of a pair of talented 5-year-old studs by barrel racing’s two all-time leading sires. Here, she reveals what she’s learned in her first time training and running stallions.
Watch The Lane (“Comet”) is by second-greatest all-time barrel-horse sire The Goodbye Lane with a dam that goes back to Sun Frost and Depth Charge on top, with Leo and Driftwood on her bottom side. And RR Double Down Dash (“Double D”) is by $38 million barrel sire Dash Ta Fame out of an own daughter of First Down Dash. The pair are competing in roping futurities this spring, plus Mote made great runs on Comet at the Ruby Buckle and plans to run at Fort Smith, and both stallions at Royal Crown Oklahoma City.
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While Comet’s pedigree includes some old-school roping bloodlines, Double D is purely racehorse top to bottom.
“I’d heard that stallions can be tough to train, but fortunately these two have are both super trainable,” said Mote. “Comet has a very consistent temperament and is super-chill all the time. You cannot hardly wake him up from a nap. And he’s never been very ‘studdy’ or aggressive on the ground.”
The sorrel stud Double D, on the other hand, tends to get more wound up, so she keeps him quieter.
“They’re opposites that way,” she explained. “With Comet I’m always trying to ask him to move his feet and wake up, while with Double D it’s about keeping him relaxed. He’s a Dash Ta Fame, so you almost have to be careful what you ask…he’s going to do it 110 percent!”
Softness and control
Mote said she’s careful not to overdo pattern work on stallions that can be easily bored. A lot of her work with them is to get them more responsive than she would want a gelding or mare, because they’re strong at a dead run.
As a 3-year-old, Comet was so lazy that responsiveness was heavy until she got him to stride out with some momentum.
“It’s hard to lighten their face up when they won’t move their feet,” she said. “Now, he knows how to run – heading steers helped – and he can fly.”
Double D, on the other hand was initially trained to race on the track, so Mote began working a lot with him on rating. But he overpleased. Now, as a way to free up the ratey sorrel in slow work, Mote rarely turns the second or third barrel, preferring to trot all the way to the fence and turn away from the barrels. She also does a lot of trotting around the barrels to encourage him to relax and wait until she tells him to finish a turn.
Hands and seat
On Double D, Mote switches back and forth from a locked O-ring snaffle to a short-shanked three-piece square snaffle and leather curb. She runs Comet in a chain Petska or a short-shanked Brittany Pozzi lifter. Since both studs are being roped on, they’re accustomed to wearing tie-downs.
“I’d always been told that studs will get stiff in the body, but these two are both naturally very bendy,” said Mote, who likes to run Comet in a tie-down. “It’s not real tight, but the tie-down is something he can balance on and it keeps him from getting too bendy.”
She likes her horses very light-mouthed, and is grateful that her father, roping trainer Bobby Mote, takes time to keep the horses feely, as well. When Laura gets her barrel trainees back from the roping pen, she sometimes bits them up in the round pen or rides in a small-diameter mouthpiece to lighten them up.
“Comet runs so hard that if I get him super responsive to my body cues, that helps,” she said. “So, I do a lot of dry work to reinforce him rating without me using my hands, so I won’t have to pull on him in a run.”
Rate no more
There’s not a lot of pulling going on in today’s training, anyway. Consider that Sharin Hall trained Hello Stella by never slowing her down before a turn, and that Michelle Alley noted that Stiletto never slows down before a turn.
“I learned a lot from Molly Powell, and the old-school way was to rate your horse before a barrel,” said Mote. “I was making pretty runs, but they weren’t competitive. Now, you have to run and just turn. It’s been an adjustment.”
It’s exciting, then, for her to ride the most athletic stallions in the business. Double D can be literally flying to second without seeming to have a chance of making the turn, but then use his inside hind leg like a jake brake. The key? Making sure you don’t get left behind.
That’s why, on the studs, Mote rides a Martin Stingray saddle.“I can get up and push them really hard, but can also get my feet in front of me a little bit and sit,” she explained. “Comet is strong, but not hard to ride as long as I stay right with him and he goes to his spots. Double D is way too strong because he puts full effort into everything. When he sets for a barrel or leaves one, you better be right there with him