Horse Problem - Ring Sour/Arena Sour Horse - Horse does not want to ride in the arena

• Since you say the horse did fine going on a trail ride, give her time off away from the arena for a while and only trail ride her, making that a very positive, while directive, experience. A ring-sour horse needs to go on some trail rides, she needs to blow off steam, see the world, enjoy just being a horse, and this way you can direct her training further, but out in the "real world" for a bit.
• Your mare has probably been run too much on barrels, etc. If that is the case, it would be best to take this horse off of barrels for a while. The reason for this is a horse that refuses to enter the arena or starts the tail wringing, ear pinning, head tossing, etc. in the arena, can eventually become very dangerous. The behavior you are seeing there now is just a forewarning of worse things to come, potentially, escalating to rearing up, bolting, spinning, etc. The best thing to do is go on trail rides for a while, do anything but barrels/arena work.
• Help the horse to refile the arena as a pleasant place to be, not always only a place just for stress/overwork/competition. Lead the horse into the arena quietly. Groom her there, feed her there, bond with her there. Use some of these bonding/relaxing techniques, especially the finger-in-the-mouth technique and teaching her to drop her head -- I teach those here: Horse Whispering "Tricks of the Trade" - To relax horse, build trust & bond them to us - Make a new "sensory memory" there to erase her past (clearly) stressful/negative arena memories. When she handles that well and settles down happily, more relaxed, mount her, but don't be goal focused there, but be "in the moment" focused. Read the horse well. No pushing. Walk around the arena only once, halt, stroke her neck and scratch/squeeze her withers fondly, "good girl!" and walk her out of the arena. Stop her. Climb off. End the lesson on that high positive, no hard work. In other words, for a while, use the arena only as a place to relax her for a while, like after your trail rides (don't work her there ever after a trail ride or you're only going to make matters worse! Go in there only as a place for her to rest for now, after riding her elsewhere), so that the horse begins to associate the arena as a place of peace, quiet, relaxation and back to the barn soon afterwards.
• Really, the best thing you can do with a suddenly ring sour horse is spend some time going into the arena and doing nothing except praise the horse for the simplest things, like: a halt, or a simple turn, etc. Praising the horse for the smallest achievements there should get her feeling better emotionally in general, and build up her confidence as well. If you go this positive route, soon the horse will stop associating the arena with (what she perceives as...) torture, stress, emotional trauma, etc., and she should start cooperating again there.
• Once she does really well there for a while, following the above, you can then increase the work in the arena without the barrels there. Keep lessons fun for her (weaving around small cones quietly at the walk is fun for most horses, especially if lots of praise & reward is involved!). This gets the horse comfortable again with just walking around in the arena and playing around in there instead of having to run, run, run, work hard, get stressed.  
• When your horse is comfortable again walking into the arena, just playing around in there with no real pressure, try next setting the barrels up in there, but don’t pay any attention to them. Pretend you don’t even see them. Play around like you have been in there, then just ride out of the arena. End the session. Do this for a few days/few sessions, then ask your horse to go around the barrels at a slow pace, but only once. Then ride around the perimeter of the arena a little and end the session for that day. End on a positive. If the horse gets stressed there, back up and only do what you know she likes, and end on that positive note for the day. Once she's good with all that simple progression, try doing a slow test run around the barrels with the horse. Just lope slowly through the pattern only once and head out of the arena, ending the lesson there. In other words, rebuild up slowly, in baby steps, reading the horse well and when you hit the threshold spot where you see the ears going back, tail swishing, irritation (which is fear really), back up and go back to doing what she was comfortable doing earlier, and build up more slowly next time.
• If your horse progresses to doing all the above willingly, think about taking her to a show, but not entering her into the competition. Just lead her around and let her "feel" the vibes there, keeping the experience positive (use the relaxing/bonding techniques even there, when needed). Do this before thinking of reentering her into any more competitions. Long way is the short way here, as we say in natural horsemanship! The time you take to back up and fix the real, deeper problem there, the quicker you'll get this fixed up for good hopefully, if it is fixable!
• Ring Sour horses can get increasingly cranky if they never get a break from the arena routine. Once your horse realizes that getting ridden can be fun and not all work/stress, then she can be started slowly back into training for the arena discipline you are choosing. Do vary the routine or you'll be back to base one again.
• Realize: not all horses are meant for arena work/barrel racing/team penning, and that's the truth. Each horse comes with unique inner abilities, likes and dislikes. Too many people try to shove a square peg horse into a round peg pole, then get surprised when the horse doesn't fit the discipline they have chosen for her (chosen for her, not by her). Often times when I'm bringing a green horse along in training, I can usually pretty quickly spot what discipline the horse would be best suited for because it is about a combination of innate ability and inner willingness, suited for a particular task. For example, I might be training an Arab that the owner wants to use for hunter/jumper, but I can quickly see the horse is ideally suited (and would love!) endurance endeavors. It's so important to fit the right horse to the right activity. Crucial, actually. You might just have an awesome trail horse who is not suited for the competitive aspects of barrel racing, team penning, etc. And that's not the horse's fault. That's just "who they are." Something to think about!
• This is just advice from a distance. Nothing helps more than in person one-to-one coaching from a good natural horsemanship trainer. If you feel you need further help, think about calling in a natural horsemanship trainer to head you in the right direction for your particular horse. If you don't know a natural horsemanship trainer near you, visit my web site here: Find a Natural Horsemanship (NH) Trainer Near You

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