The day was split up into morning activities and afternoon activities. The morning was a time to go thru 10 different stations of obstacles. Each horse had 3 minutes to complete each obstacle (sometimes more than 1 obstacle to a station) and then you had to move on because all the riders needed to go thru each station. If you found you were getting close to the 3 minute time, you could get off and walk your horse thru the obstacle. The afternoon was a timed event, an individual horse on a set course in the arena. You got an individual time that was combined with your team members time.
Morning...
D and I were the first team up, #'s 1 and 2 respectively. D was convinced it was because we were "newbies". But we didn't care much, we weren't there to compete. Everyone spread out to the different stations but we got station #1, the "fun house". Actually being first on the first obstacle was probably a good thing. It was very windy that day and this "fun house" had alot of things blowing around in the wind. As the day went on I'm sure it was harder for the horses. This "house" was a chute with a corner to it. There was construction webbing on the sides, caution tape streamers hanging down-blowing in the wind, black plastic to walk on, pool noodles sticking out from the sides and a very large balloon hanging down at the corner-blowing wildly in the wind. Zoe was fine with everything but the very large balloon. I could get her up to it but not past it. Time was running out so I got off and walked her thru it. It was an obstacle that we took it one step at a time...there was no room to do anything else.
Next was the water trough. A drop off (about 18") into the water, which was only 6 inches deep but it was muddy water and the horses couldn't see the bottom. Go across to a large berm, up and over into a slightly muddy spot and you were done. Only Zoe didn't want to go into the water. We even had a choice to go in on the side and avoid the drop off, but that didn't help. Our 3 minutes was up, so we had to move on. Sky didn't go thru either. I was hoping we would be more successful with the rest of the obstacles.
Pushing the large ball was next. We had to push it into the chute, back out, go to the side of the chute where there was an opening to push it out sideways. Only on the side was a berm built up with a sewer pipe and a drop off into the chute. And you had to push the ball into the hole that was dug by the fence-about 15 feet away. It was a good thing we practiced with a large ball. I think it helped, altho this ball was much larger and heavier. But we could do it.
Shooting the paint ball gun was next. I was also glad that we had practiced shooting off our horses at the barn. We had to shoot 4x, twice with each hand, and not over our horse and hit the target (a life sized outline of a person). We also had to stand inside the orange delineators. That meant you had to turn the horse around to shoot with the other hand. I wasn't sure I could shoot left handed-never tried. Zoe was rock solid-never moved a foot as I shot. And I hit the target-even left handed! Sky did great also. Phew!
The paddocks were next. Inside each paddock was 3 different obstacles. Paddock #5 was called Shaky Ground. There was a narrow plank to walk towards a mattress to walk over. Zoe sometimes walked off the plank, had to sniff the mattress and we were over. Next was walking thru tires. I hate walking thru tires. She took the short cut and I accepted that as done. Then were was a grate to walk on, elevated by rail road ties and a mattress at the end to walk on. Zoe would get on the grate and cut off to the left. We never walked the whole length of the grate, but I made her finish by walking on the mattress at the end.
Paddock #6. Side pass cones-easy. Serpentine thru cones-easy. Pull tire over metal roofing-inside tire was 2 large rocks. It was heavy and noisy. Zoe did it no problem.
Paddock #7. Dismount on an overturned water trough and remount on the off side-but you can't get off the water trough. At first Zoe turned her butt over so I could get on the "right" side. But on the 3rd try she did it. Back thru a zig-zag. Zoe did that. Next was harder. A 12 ft long sewer pipe- on the ground at the beginning and the end was elevated about 6". We were supposed to walk our horses over the pipe straddling the pipe the whole way-left feet on the left side of the pipe and right feet on the right side of the pipe. I've never practiced that before. Zoe kept wanting to put all feet on the same side of the pipe and I could direct her over to correct her. We would straddle walk for a few steps then she again switched her feet so they were on the same side of the pipe. And we fixed it again. And that's how we did that obstacle. It was interesting.
Paddock #8. It was called "Zip-line" and there was a zip-line at the end. First you had to pick up a hula hoop by a dog on a leash. D and I had to both hold it and drop it over a pole that had a basketball on the top of it. The idea of this paddock was to see how your horse did with things that moved around. Both horses didn't move when the hula hoop hit the ground. They weren't bothered by the dog either. Next we had to toss the basketball to each other...just to see how the horses did. We didn't have to be good at throwing or catching. Good thing because I couldn't catch D's throw...it was short. The ball hit the ground and bounced up on Zoe's belly. She just stood there. Good girl. We had to try to make a basket in the shortened basketball hoop and I did it-I was surprised. The horses however were not impressed, I think they wanted to go to sleep. We had to back into 2 side by side "parking spaces" outlined by some cones. Between us was a zipline. Ahead of us, up high on the zipline, was a rain jacket. The jacket was to come down the line, between the horses and hit the fence behind us. We were supposed to stay in our "parking spaces", hopefully with calm horses. The horses didn't care about the jacket until it hit the fence. Zoe danced a little but I was able to keep her in her space. Sky jumped out sideways, I guess he had to look at the jacket.
Space #9 was a long narrow area that they had set up for jousting. With a lance (it had a nail on the end of it) I was supposed to pop a balloon as I walked down the area. On the way back I had to do it at a trot or I could lope. I chose to trot. I missed the balloon the first time and got it on the way back. I was told that in the timed event in the afternoon we had to continue forward motion at a trot or a lope, we couldn't slow to a walk or stop to pop the balloon. Zoe didn't like the balloon popping close to her ear and in retrospect I should have moved my hand up the lance so that it didn't pop next to her ear. It didn't help that it was very windy by this time and the darn balloon was all over that place. Sky and D did a great job with the lance-both ways.
Area #10 was something called the Frontier Village. It was in a wooded area behind the arena. Sky went first while we waited. I remember that when Zoe was younger she would have hated to stand and wait while a friend walked off to do something. Today she stood calmly yay! We had to walk a small trail with branches on it, to a ravine. We had to go down the ravine and it was steep. The sides were just river rock. The rock wasn't loose and there was absolutely no path to get down, you had to go on the rocks. There was no room at the bottom to do anything but go up--also on river rock. At the top you had to go back down the ravine, but this time there was a dirt path. At the top you had to negotiate some sharp turns, go over a berm-on the down side of the berm there were logs to go over. Then go past a tent with a "fire" in the tent. It sounded like a butane torch. Then go past a "fire pit" with a flare burning in it...it also made a hissing sound. Zoe and I did it all mounted. I didn't know if Zoe could go down the rocks, but she did it. She cocked her head at the "fires" and we just kept moving. Sky wouldn't go down the ravine so D walked him down and up. He also didn't want to go over the berm so he got walked again.
That was the end of the morning. We could go back and try obstacles we wanted to practice. We went back to the water. Eventually Sky and Zoe were able to follow other horses into it. Sky even went in once on his own. But Zoe didn't. We only had 10 minutes to try because they were closing the arena to get ready for the afternoon's activities. What we really needed was more time and to try the "work outside the obstacle" and rest in the water idea. I'll be looking for unfamiliar water to work in the future.
Afternoon
They told us that they would put all of our teams into the computer and it would select which team had to go first for the timed event. Wouldn't you know it...it picked our team. We had warm ups for about 15 minutes. That was interesting. All the riders in the arena at the same time. I think normally it would have been okay if we all had the same ideas of how to use the arena...but no. It turns out that the very competitive people were professional extreme cowboys. There were only 2 of them, but that was enough. It seems they have no manners. They gallop straight for you and expect you to move, even if you were practicing something in that area first, or were taking the inside of the arena so the faster riders could have the outside. It didn't matter to them if they passed you on the right or the left side. There were several of us that had to move for them. I don't know what they were trying to prove, it was obvious that they were the fastest. I was glad I wasn't there to try and win something. I felt bad for the other riders that came and were probably hoping to place...it's hard to compete against professionals. One thing I thought was interesting-when one of them would run up behind Zoe or blow straight past us, Zoe remained calm. That wouldn't have happened say...5 years ago. So I found my "silver lining" in the situation.
D didn't want to go first so Zoe and I went for it. We had to go around the fenceline of the arena-clockwise. When we went almost all the way around we did a 180 and headed for the water obstacle. The idea was to go thru it, up the berm and over to the area where the ball was...only there was no ball. We just had to back thru it. Head for the delineators spaced out nicely for a serpentine down the arena. At the other end, pick up the lance and go back up the arena. Pop 1 balloon on the way up and 1 balloon on the way down. Give up the lance, go back around the fenceline of the arena clockwise, to the "L"-go thru it front ways, back to the berm and into the water, out of the water and you were done.
I had never had Zoe in such a big arena by herself, had never asked her to lope in anything this big. I decided to lope the long sides and she did great. We skipped the water, took the time penalty, and headed for the back up. She did the back up great. Serpentine was good, it seemed like she wanted to lope it but I wouldn't let her. With the lance we missed the balloon the first time and got one on the way back. Loped back up the arena, forward thru the "L", skipped the water again and we were done. I took the time penalty for the water, figured she wouldn't go thru it and I didn't want her to get the idea it was ok to just stand at the edge and I didn't want to take the time to try to get her in. The arena looks big from the grandstands but when you are in it, it's not really that big. It makes me wonder how they fit all the rodeo activities in it.
So that was our day. It was great fun and D and I decided that we would do it again. I have some new obstacles to work on and am encouraged to try other things like it. It's fun to do something different and gives me confidence to try other things. If someone else is reading this...sorry the blog was so long. I wanted to write it down so I would remember the day and what I could practice.
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