Bombproofing Clinic

Ever since watching the bombproofing clinic last year, I've wanted to take TC to one (and I really want to take Rico to one just because I think he'd have so much fun). Despite not quite being back to full work yet, I decided to just take him. I figured that we could stay as long or as short as we wanted and I could do as much or as little as I wanted. Even just getting off the property and doing ground work was good.

Ridiculous 

TC has a bit of presence to him, and when I unloaded him, he made it known that he had ARRIVED and started screaming/pulling me around. I tacked him up quickly and took him on a walk. We stuck out like sore thumbs. We were the only ones in an english saddle and TC was one of the only not-gaited and not-QH horses.

I had to hand him off to some innocent bystander to sign paperwork. He dragged them around and whinnied too, but generally seemed to start to realize that none of the horses were being murdered. Weird. Since this place (and all new places) was obviously the horse murder capital of the world.

He hated it touching him at first so I made him
stand there being poked

We were invited into the arena and introduced ourselves, our horses, and what we were here for. I told everyone, as I wrestled TC into standing somewhat still among a herd (probably 20 horses) of statuesque horses, that we were just here for exposure since he was young and could be a bit reactive.

After introductions, which TC thought took too long so tormented me to make his feelings known, we started walking around with the two clinicans who were mounted and watched them demonstrate the obstacles. They had really great ideas on how to introduce each obstacle and emphasized kindness and patience with our horses. That was kind of when I thought I might be kicked out if I had to get on TC's case about not frantically running away from various obstacles. But while we were walking around and I was trying to listen, TC dragged me over to other obstacles to investigate them. It wasn't unusual for the clinicians to arrive at an obstacle to demonstrate that I was holding my horse back from. I kept apologizing and wondering why I thought this was a good idea. I don't really want to spend an entire day wrestling this enormous horse.

At first he wasn't sure if he could fit through

We were then set loose on everything. I immediately walked over to the water because TC loves water. He stood snorting at it for a while, drank it (ew), and then walked through like it was nothing. All that work through puddles has paid off!

The next obstacle we tried was the yoga ball they had that they had taught the horses to kick. TC thought that was fun, he kept putting his nose on the ball and then kicking it away from himself.

After the two I thought TC was going to be okay with, we walked over to the pile of stuff. The stuff was basically a 90's kid dream- nurf everything and some big frisbees that were floppy enough to throw at the horses. This section was located by the stands, so obviously rather than spooking at the giant teddy bear or the other horses spooking at having stuff thrown into them, he spooked at a person sitting above him. TC really hates people being above him.

Since it was all about bombproofing, I told the person to move again and then TC was okay. He shoved his face right into their lap, actually, and then started smiling at a nice man eating cashews. They weren't really sure what he was doing, and I was trying to yank him back, but explained that he just really wanted them to give him treats for smiling. He's starting to offer that behavior constantly, which is adorable but can be kind of weird if you have no idea what he's doing.

After socializing, we started in on the obstacle. He let me throw everything at him. He stood a bit tense and was a little nervous, but he never moved or startled. Just looked miserable that I was his owner. God why her, why did I get stuck with her.

So fun!

He kept trying to grab it

From there we walked over the tarp and the mattress, which he didn't care about. Then over the bridge in the middle, which he also didn't care about. I definitely did lots of work with tarps with him previously, and he walks over the bridge at home a lot, but I was surprised about the mattress.

There was a 4x4 with a flag of caution tape that we could drag around. I took him over there to see it and he shoved his face in the flag, tried to bite it, and then let me drag it toward him, next to him, and behind him. Soooo bolting away from something in the distance behind you is a thing, but you don't mind when I drag this huge flag behind you? Mmmkay.

After that we walked through the car wash, which he didn't care about at all once as he realized that he wasn't too big to fit through. Then on to the monkey in a barrel, which he also didn't care about. He didn't care about it so much that he wasn't paying attention to it at all. He was looking off into the distance at a field. I had to tell him "please pay attention to the thing I'm trying to spook you with" so yeah okay. Who is this horse?

I could fling it up at him and he'd still look curiously at it

This pole was attached to the 4x4 we dragged

We walked across to the next obstacle, which was a couple of plywood walls that had holes in them so that pool noodles could be shoved through. This one TC struggled with a little bit, slowly and carefully trying to snake through it so he wasn't touched. After I poked/thwapped at him with noodles a few times, he was fine.

In one corner, there were a bunch of big flags. TC let me put them all over him, including waving them above his back, waving them over his head, and even draping one over his face, which he just put his head up to sniff at it and tried to nibble at it too.

The last element was something they called the flintstone cart, which was a pvc pipe cart with two barrels for wheels. He was totally into pushing it and pulling it, no problems.

What is this? He tried to snake through it a few
times because he didn't want to be touched

Loved this cart

At one point, one of the clinicians asked when I was going to get on. I had no idea. I hadn't even brought my helmet out. So as my mom went to leave (she came to watch and take a few videos/pictures! I'm going to make a compilation video this weekend maybe), I asked her to grab my helmet from the trailer. I hopped on and TC was totally fine.

We did everything again, this time undersaddle. He was super good. Zero problems, except as he boinged off the mattress once. I was shocked. He walked through the car wash with me, he kicked the ball (and learned to follow it and kick it when I said "kick it"), he went through the water, he carried flags around, he went through the noodle chute, he walked over the bridges, and he dragged everything too!

Previously nervous rider now not paying attention to previously
nutty horse while only holding the reins with one hand?

No problems, even when it was closer together
and there were more noodles

Afterward we went to eat lunch, and TC returned to his bored, destructive self. I tied him at the trailer and he reared and reared (this seems to run in the family, his half sister does this when she gets bored too) because he could only see ONE horse and not ALL the horses. People invited me over to eat lunch and I said that I had to stay at my rig because I didn't want TC to get loose. The clinician came over and said they had a hitching post near the picnic tables, so I threw him there. And he was NOT happy. I tied him short enough where he couldn't rear but he could still grab some grass.

He kept wiggling and screaming and was making a scene when he wasn't frantically eating grass. Everyone kept looking over to him as I chatted with some of the other riders and felt a little embarrassed. All the sweet little quarter horses were dozing at their trailers, and mine... that one is mine.

Let me back in there! Patience is for losers!

Back inside and we started on the ground again. TC thought he knew how to do EVERYTHING and wanted to hurry through each obstacle. I had to get after him a bit and slow his brain down. This happens undersaddle too, when he gets over eager about stuff I'm not asking for and just does it.

Once as I got him slowed down on a few of the easy obstacles, I saw that they had lowered more stuff on the car wash, put more noodles in the noodle chute, and turned the bridge into a teeter totter. TC had no problems with any of them, so I hopped back on.

This time riding, I wanted to just play. We played soccer with some of the other riders, passing the yoga ball to each other. This meant that sometimes the ball got stuck under TC's feet, which he didn't seem to care about. We helped a few riders by being the calm lead (!!) horse through some of the obstacles. We got helped by a rider with the flintstone cart, trying to get TC to push up against it and push it over the ground. He totally got it. Then we switched and dragged the cart while the other rider tried to get her horse to push the cart.

TC bored because he wanted to rush through this

Go kick it, TC

TC started to feel fatigued and was getting balky again, so I hopped off and went to talk to one of the clinicians. I told her that I was sorry, but he'd been so good that I didn't want to do any more. Maybe next time he'll be okay to go all day, but this time we needed to leave an hour early.

The clinician was so so nice to me about him. She said that she trains police horses for a living, and that if I ever wanted to sell him, he would make a perfect police horse. I kind of... stared. This is a horse who has been called dangerous and highly reactive. A police horse? I told her wow, but that the day was really surprising to me because he was such a reactive horse.

She said that you can always train reactivity out of a horse, but you can't train his curious attitude, and that's what really took over today. I told her about our bolting problems (and how they were gone now that he was in a big paddock with friends nearby) and she told me that her first instinct would be to guess that he was feeling bored. Now that he has more room and friends, he's not standing around bored all day and doesn't feel like he needs to take it out on me.

He was really eager to sniff this thing

I said thank you, and that I would consider the police horse option (they like them to be 8-12 anyway so we have a few years) if TC ever got to a point where he couldn't do what I wanted and wasn't worth what he would be as a dressage horse (since the police horses can be a little unsound, like if his suspensory becomes chronic). The horses have excellent lives, apparently they are well taken care of, well trained, not overworked, and when they're ready for retirement, they have a ceremony, pull their shoes, and they all live happily out in pasture.

Overall obviously I'm ecstatic about this horse. I honestly have no words. Other than that we clearly need to go to more places and stand tied there. But seriously. no words. I'm so glad I brought him (though now I'm super bummed because he's really lame from what we're really really really hoping is an abscess, keeping everything crossed for him, one eviscerated hoof wrap at a time).