My girlfriend and I were talking about this the other day...

I think we cane to the conclusion that roping (specifically heading) and running barrels is about the same stress on the horses body.

She was leaning more towards roping was harder on their body/joints...

I was leaning towards that barrels was harder on their body/joints...

What are youth thoughts on this??

I personally don't think you can say either is harder...

Both require completely different things for a horse to do. So is it fair to try and say which is harder?

If for argument sake I had to pick, I to would say roping.
Simply because its not just you running, it requires eye and hand coordination. Takes a horse that can set you up properly and it also takes a good hard running steer to get a good run.

But with Barrels you also need a good horse and good arena to win.

????????

My vet told me that Calf Roping and Barrel Racing are the hardest rodeo events on horses. Barrel Racing being the toughest on them.
Edited to say:
I think that Barrel Racing is harder on a horse.
OK I'm with the above poster as they require different things from the horse so they aren't really comparable to each other as to which is harder- but on another note- I have to get my head horse chiro'd more when I head on him, than when we run barrels on him, he's green, but runs 2D times most of the time (I haven't run him for a while)- don't forget the head horses have to pull the steer across the arena and sometimes- if the header leaves on a loose rope- doesn't pick up steers head, etc. that's a pretty good jerk! Some steers are pretty big and they still have to motor across the pen with them! I would say physically the heading is harder for horses roping big steers, as I have seen some get body sore before (even in good condition) and I have never had a barrel horse in good condition get body sore before! My sisters barrel horse- that I am heading on in my avatar- has a broken vertebrae in his back (he broke it a long time ago) and its harder on him to head on him than it is to run barrels on him, if you don't pick up every steers head and take them off on a short rope he won't pull, I think it hurts him too much. Does any of this make sense?

I think barrel racing...maybe, could be