Sunday Dottie and I took the horses to Dunnigan to the Running I Ranch. It's a place to practice many obstacles that they have set up all over their ranch. I was there about 2 years ago, it was fun then and it's still fun. We were specifically looking for water obstacles because at the Folsom Mounted Patrol Challenge that was our most difficult obstacle. We also found some more obstacles that we encountered at the Challenge here at Running I...some were easy and some were not so easy. Besides the water we found there were a few more things that we will be working on...for us they were very challenging.
We started out in the arena. Everything in the arena was easy for the horses. There were plain tarps to walk over, and tarps with poles, branches and pool noodles on them, mattresses to walk over, things to drag, barrels to go around. It's a very large arena and we could canter in just 1/4 of it, leaving plenty of room for others to work in the arena. And a large ball to push around.
You never know when we'll run into a ball or mattress on the trail!
There was the trail hills to go over. It had ups and downs with logs to go over. At the side of it was the plastic bottle pit. Zoe didn't mind the plastic bottles, but Sky minded. He had to be walked thru then he could be ridden thru.
The pully pole was still there...had a bag of tin cans on the end of the pully that you could drop to the ground. The horses didn't mind that.
Everywhere there were real animal skins attached to obstacles or to the fences to get in and out of places. The horses didn't seem to mind them. They even sniffed them. Some of the skins were very old, but some were more recent-however none of the skins were fresh. There were some dead animals around-on purpose. There were 2 dead ducks next to 2 obstacles, and there was a dried up fish on the antlers of one of the fake deers. Last time we were there, there was no animal skins.
We found 3 goats tied to trees next to the walk thru burlaps and hanging pool noodles. The horses didn't seem to worried about the goats however I didn't trust them-they had horns and seemed agitated...so we didn't get to close to them.
Then we found our first water obstacle. This was a new one to us-wasn't there last time. 3 large pipes that had water flowing out of them into a pool of water. The pool had a creek flowing out of it into the very large pond. The point was to go thru the pool of water next to the "water falls". The small creek was no problem to go over, but the pool-different story. The water from the "water fall" was about 1 foot from your horse as you went thru the pool. The pool didn't have a nice flat bottom, it was cone shaped-started shallow, then went steeper quickly, but only up to my knees. I say that because I ended up leading Zoe thru the pool, she and Sky wouldn't go thru and wouldn't follow the other nice people that offered to lead us thru on their horses. Sigh. Finally we were able to ride them thru and I could get Zoe to go thru in the opposite direction too. The picture shows a different way to operate the obstacle-the water is changed to go thru the top pipe and the water goes over the pool so you would have to walk under the water fall. You would also get wet because it still had some "rain" over the pool. 
We didn't do the obstacle with the water flowing like this. I was just happy we got thru the first set of waterfalls.
The next obstacle proved to be quite a challenge. I had never worked a teeter-totter with Zoe. I was advised to hand walk her thru it slowly. Just before it would teeter to the other side I was to stop my horse and REALLY praise her. We were able to do that. Then we were to slowly walk down the other side, but we weren't slow. She got scared. We were able to do it one more time, but it wasn't done any calmer. So then it was difficult to just get her front feet on the board. I finally was able to get that done in hand and also riding her. Sky did better. Dottie was able to lead him over and ride him over, but he wasn't happy. He didn't like the board coming up behind him. So eventually he didn't want to do it either. So this an obstacle we will be practicing.
The next section had things that we had done before, a nice break in the obstacles. An elevated pole -from the ground to about 1 foot high- to have the horse walk with left feet on one side and right feet on the other side. We almost made it to the top of it. An "L" to work, ditches to work, bridges to work. The thing that was another challenge was the board to walk on. It was about 18 inches wide to start for about 12 feet, then narrowed to 9 inches wide for about 12 feet. After trying to work the teeter-totter, Zoe wasn't sure about putting her feet on any boards. So I just worked on getting her to put her front feet on the boards and we could do that. Another thing to practice at home.
There was a mud pit here. A square made of rail road ties about 5 x 5. Filled with water, mud on the bottom. It had a board with holes drilled into it floating on the top. You were supposed to ride your horse over it and as they stepped on the board the water would flow into the pit and it would feel a little unstable to them because now the board was on top of squishy mud. I got off to try this one, she didn't like it when I tried to ride her over it. It took some patience, but eventually I got her to walk over it, then we were done. Sky didn't want to try.
There was a bear skin on a zip line that you could pull back and forth. The horses didn't seem to mine that .
There was an archway to walk thru. The pole at the bottom was made of metal. Sky usually doesn't like to deal with metal poles but he walked thru this one just fine. Zoe was a little hesitant when her feet hit the pole and made a nice loud sound. There was also a dead duck next to you as you walked thru this obstacle
We stopped for lunch and gave the horses a break. It wasn't too hot that day. They did a good job of drinking water.
After lunch we found 2 more water obstacles to do. The first was to walk into the pond. You could go into the pond 2 different ways. One of the ways you had to walk past a row boat. Zoe didn't like the row boat and wouldn't go past it. I was just glad that she got into the water to start with. So we just stopped and stared at the boat. Sky said no way. The other direction we both could get into the water and ride out-we made a small circle doing this many times. The other water obstacle reminded us of the water obstacle at the Folsom Lake Patrol Challenge. It was a long wide muddy pool of water to walk thru. Zoe didn't want to do it and neither did Sky. So I said we were going to work small circles and figure 8s and keep their feet moving-they could only stop and rest with feet in the water. With that Zoe was able to stop with her front feet in the water. I asked her to go forward but got resistance-so we worked circles and 8s some more. Then I was able to get all her feet in the water. We just stood there for a few minutes. Then I asked her to walk forward and she did it! I was so happy. Sky still wasn't convinced and wouldn't even follow Zoe thru as we did it again. So Dottie got off and walked him thru it a few times. Then he could be ridden thru it following Zoe, then he did it by himself. Yay! It was a good way to end the day.
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