I got a new horse December 9th. His name is Red Barons Dust (aka Bear) that is 11 years old. He is a beautiful buckskin gelding that is a bit skinny at the moment. I enjoy barrel racing so that is what I'm going to pattern him to do but we do have to work out kinks first. He is super barn sour and my arena does not have fences so he likes to try to grab the bit and run into the trees. He is getting way better about it though and we started working on the barrels, I have to say he is a natural. We have started (very) slow liking the barrels and he is doing great! I will post a picture of him but it will not be a full body picture because he needs to gain weight first.

Why are you riding a skinny horse? If he needs to gain weight, that should be the top priority before riding. If he is skinny enough that you are unwilling to post a full body picture of him, you shouldn't be riding him.

The horse is fine. Just unfit and unmuscled. Not emaciated or starved.

He is not starved at all! You can just see a few ribs (faintly) and he, like Holly said, he has a lack of muscle is all.

I have a few horses that were never broke to ride and are in their teens. They are insanely out of shape and don't have a ton of muscle tone, but they don't have ribs showing. They aren't fat, just filled out. The 5 horses I do ride are a step above that. I did once buy a horse at a slaughter sale that had been ridden around before the sale. She was skinny. I waited 6 months for her to fill out, then a horse bit her right were a girth would go, so I waited another couple months before I rode her. That was back when I only had one other horse to ride, but I didn't mind waiting so that my horse would be more comfortable and in the best shape possible before I got on her.

Everyone has their own opinions and methods. The horse is a hard keeper in general and therefore doesn't get time off from riding because he simply doesn't need it. He's not worked into the ground and is ridden for barely 20 minutes a day.

Everone does have their own opinions and methods. My method involves making sure my horse is in good shape before riding it. I have had hard keepers and they don't get ridden when they're thin because my opinion is that riding a thin animal is wrong. They aren't going to perform at the top of their game, and in the case of a barrel horse, they need to be ready for anything. Maybe the reason why he keeps trying to bolt back to the barn is because the saddle hurts due to the lack of muscle on his topline. My horses are not obese, but every one of them is comfortable throughout the ride and doesn't feel the need to head for the barn at the first chance they see.

I have to agree with Shingashina here. A horse being a hard keeper is no excuse to be riding it when it is thin. If you just got him, give him some time off and feed him up before you start training. This is how you make a barrel horse sour and start having problems. If you work the pattern when they aren't 100%, they're going to get sick of it and eventually rebel. I can't count the number of horses I've seen that rear up and buck and back to try to avoid the arena, and it's because the rider has made it an unhappy place for them by doing things like this. I've had hard keepers, and guess what? They aren't ridden when they're having trouble even if that means I have to take a break from riding because I don't want to put extra pressure on them when they need to gain. I run barrels, and the horse I run is a tank, but if she were to have an issue keeping weight on, I would give her as much time off as she needed and instead use my slow, lazy, uncoordinated horse to just participate.

Again your opinion and YOUR methods. The horse is FINE. It is not hurting him or affecting him in any way shape or form being ridden. You guys act like he's going to die. There are top notch horses that are thinner than him and do they have issues? No. Let's mind our own business now because you guys have no idea what is going on with this horse, how long we've known him, his breeding, his back story, anything.