Tips on Horse Barrel Racing Attire

"Hi, I?m Holly Heidemann and on behalf of Expert Village, we're going to talk today about barrel racing attire - what is normally worn in the arena and the first thing I?m going to start with is the difference between a dress code race and a non-dress code race. When there is a dress code race, which is usually evident at rodeos and some nicer barrel races where there's more money at stake, they normally require you to wear a cowboy hat. Lots of different sizes, shapes, colors, that doesn't matter but you do have to have a hat. Most places do have a hat fine though. If you lose your hat during a run it's usually a fine that they fine you a certain amount of money so it's a good idea to secure your hat either with a stampede string or two-sided tape, bobby pins, whatever you have to do to keep it on your head. The other races don't require a hat and so the rest of this dress code I?m going to talk about is, is what most of the rest of them require. First of all, a long sleeve shirt. If you're going to a jackpot or a gymkhana, that won't be required, but any other barrel race normally will require a long sleeve shirt with a collar. If you buy a shirt from a western store, you're probably going to be good. They just don't want to see t-shirts and things like that. The other thing that you're required to wear is a belt. Most barrel racers have won a belt buckle of some kind and so you're going to have a belt buckle with a regular belt, a belt buckle's not necessary. One thing you do want to watch with your belt buckle though is make sure that your belt is tight enough and close enough to your body that you don't get your belt buckle caught on your saddle horn when you're running. That's a hazard that some people face. Then you have to have long jeans. You're not allowed to wear shorts - anything like that. The jeans are to protect your legs with the saddle. When you ride in shorts, the fenders of your saddle will have a tendency to rub on the inside of your knees and cause you to kind of have a little raspberries there. So you're going to avoid that by wearing long pants and then the last thing is your boots. These are, are my working boots so they're kind of scary looking; you can tell I use them a lot. But what you'll notice about these boots is that they have a heel on them right here. What that does is the stirrup is right here and the heel catches your foot so that your foot can't go clear through the stirrup. It's a safety feature that riding boots have that you need to make sure you have on when you're running. Most places will require that you wear a boot with a heel. If you're going to wear any other kind of shoes, tennis shoes, things like that are not eligible for a dress code so that's basically what you're going to wear to a barrel race or a rodeo."