Ep 157: Building a Training Career with Sarai Angelle
On this episode, I am joined by barrel horse trainer, Sarai Angelle, of McDade, Texas, as we recap her mentorship experience and talk about all things barrel racing, futurity training, and building and maintaining confidence as a professional trainer.
Phil: Sarai, tell us a little bit about your background and your training business.
Sarai: Like some of you listening to this episode, I actually did not grow up with parents who had any sort of horse or rodeo background. My mom’s family owned a few horses growing up, but she had no experience with performance horse training or anything to do with barrel racing. Over the years, I’ve had some incredible mentors that have shaped my path and have influenced how I’ve built my program from the ground up. I mostly train barrel horses, (specifically, futurity horses), and I have a pretty small program, meaning, I only keep a maximum of 8 horses in training at a time, including my personal horses. This is the volume I can keep up with by myself, and that is where I feel like I can do each horse justice with feeding, caring for them, and putting in the rides needed to progress their training at the pace I need to. I know in this business, a lot of times we need the numbers to keep it working financially. But for me, I’m working to get to a place where I can have a comfortable amount of horses and make a comfortable living.
Phil: Tell us about what disciplines you train in.
Sarai: I’m a barrel horse trainer, and specifically, I specialize in training futurity horses. I really believe futurities are the best barrel racing environment you can be in. Don’t get me wrong; I love futurities, but it can be really stressful at times because of the pace at which these horses have to progress to a certain level. A lot of times, we don’t get our futurity horses until they are late 2 year olds or even 3 year olds, so as trainers, it’s a lot of pressure to teach them everything they need to know to be competitive in that amount of time. It creates a situation where you put a lot of pressure on yourself, and you get to rushing your training. When a horse isn’t progressing as quickly as you want it to, that can be really frustrating and take a toll on your self confidence. That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to come and do a weeklong mentorship with Phil. He’s always able to get me in the right headspace so that I can train at my full potential.
Phil: Tell us about how you’ve built confidence as a trainer.
Sarai: The most important thing we can have for our horses is having confidence in ourselves – knowing that we’re absolutely capable of doing what we need to do and achieving what we want to achieve on their backs. This week, we talked a lot about your self image and your self talk, and how that shapes your confidence, and I’m so glad that we did. Lord knows, I’m guilty of being my own worst critic. Some days, we beat ourselves before we even get on our horses because we think about yesterday’s failures. This isn’t just with horses, but with anything. If we beat ourselves up and talk poorly about ourselves and our abilities, we’re making our starting point even further away from where we want to be.
Phil: You’ve had some great mentors in your life. Tell us about these individuals and how they’ve shaped your training career thus far.
Sarai: I’ve had tons of amazing mentors over the years. These people have been especially influential in my training career because I didn’t come from the horse/rodeo background. I think a lot of people get discouraged when they don’t have that background, and I just want people to know that you don’t have to have that background to be good at this. You can absolutely develop yourself and learn as you go. 10-15 years ago, I would’ve never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing now. And, I attribute a lot of that success to my mentors.
Phil: You had a challenging week with one of your horses, and you made significant progress with her. Tell us a little about the things you did to get that progress with her.
Sarai: This week has made me realize how important those quality rides are. Being able to take my time and spend that quality time with each horse allows me to be so much more intentional and methodical with my movements, and I think it has a huge impact on not only my horse’s confidence, but my confidence as well.
“Be Your Best Horsemanship” is brought to you by Silver Lining Herbs, Classic Equine, Martin Saddlery, Better Horses Network, Purina, Healthycoat, CINCH, Starbar, and Clarifly. These brands have been part of the Phil Haugen Horsemanship team for many years, and their products continue to play an integral role in the success of our performance horse training program. To support these brands, visit our Sponsors tab.
