Ranch Competition Champion

We'll be back to dressage data science next week! Today I wanted to catch up on another topic. A couple of weeks ago, I decided on a whim to take TC to another ranch competition playday thing. If you remember, we did this in May and we ended up winning the Novice division! After absolutely zero practice and no preparation, I decided to move us up to the Open division. 

I did us a disservice by arriving late. I figured he wasn't in the most amazing shape right now and I didn't want to be on him too long for the desensitization portion (they give you like 2-2.5 hours to go practice before the competition), then make him wait around a bunch, then get back on for the competition. Just seemed like a lot and I had nothing but my TCS to ride in, I'm a bit careful about riding too long in it given that there's no tree. 

Turns out that me arriving *just in time* to do 30 minutes of practice ended up me arriving just in time to see someone fall :( she had to go to the hospital so the ambulance came. Sounds like she is okay (she was wearing her helmet!), she was conscious, just had a bad back already and wanted to make sure it was okay.

Professional Ranch Competition Horse

So I took him on a walk while that happened and then there was an announcement about us coming in on foot and walking the course. I went over and asked if it was okay if I rode TC during the course walk. I promised I wouldn't get in the way or touch any obstacles, but it was a way to get in the ring before our competition. 

Obviously TC thought that walking around a bunch of fun obstacles with a group of people meant that he was in the circus. He kept doing tricks and then staring back at me like "they LOVE me, I can just tell" and I was trying to just keep him somewhat focused so that I could hear what the course was. 

We then left and I tied him back up to hang out while I studied the course. He pawed and pawed and pawed. If there's one mistake I've made, it's that the horse will NOT stand at the trailer. He will not pull back or panic or anything, but he will stare at you aggressively and dig a giant hole. 

It was so fun!

Finally, we were on again and he was HOT. He would not stand still, he had to get in there and show off. Look at all the people watching, look at all the people judging, there was music, there was an announcer! 

There was a ton of backing up, so I did some clicker training with reining back (I regret not bringing my neck rope, he reins back way better in that). Soon, it was our time to go in. 

TC says, pls let me go in the ring

The course was similar to the one last time, but it was much harder and there were a few extra obstacles, some that TC had never seen. 

The first obstacle was the rope gate, but instead of walking forward through it, we had to use our left hands and rein back through it. TC was perfect except wanting to take the rope from me. I said no thank you and we moved on. 

The next obstacle was an umbrella. I had to pick up the umbrella, open it, hold it over my head, and walk a circle with it. TC has never done this before, but he has seen umbrellas. He thought it was GREAT. I kind of feigned not remembering how to open an umbrella (#californiaproblems maybe?) so that I could do it slowly. He grabbed it in his teeth and I had to wrestle it out of his mouth before our walk around. 

Next up was a big garbage can, one of those big green bins that you put yard waste in. It was half full of water and you had to walk up to it and flip the lid, making a big banging noise as it fell open. I could have sworn that TC would have at least startled, but he didn't. I think he realizes that the point of these competitions is to let me do whatever the fuck I want with him and then he gets a ribbon and a lot of attention. 

Best boy

Next we had to dismount near a cone, pick up his right front foot, lead over to a picnic table, mount from the off side, then go stand by the cone and drop the reins, allowing the judge to count to ten before picking the reins up. TC has been mounted on the wrong side exactly once... when I realized I'd never done it before and so jumped on him from that side to get on for the competition. He hated it then, but he was fine in the competition. He also stood perfectly still with the cone in his mouth for the ten seconds. Ridiculous. 

After that were two exercises we'd seen before: the car wash and the belly tickler. The belly tickler is a bunch of pool noodles sticking straight up that we side pass over so that they thwap his belly. He doesn't care about either. By this point, the announcer actually said "Megan, does your horse spook at anything?" and it's like... not really. 

Garbage box thing

Instead of just walking over the bridge, we had to put two front feet on it from the side, then turn on the forehand to face it and walk over it. TC was great at that. 

Following the bridge, we had to do a very odd weaving exercise over 4 cones. We had to face a cone, then turn on the forehand 180 degrees to put the cone under the horse's belly, then turn on the haunches to put the next cone under the belly, and repeat until we went through all 4 cones. TC thought that was weird but he did it SHOCKINGLY WELL for a ginormous horse who is not always aware of how many legs he has. 

Next, we had to go put a jacket on and walk around with it. I started noticing that the one other Open rider was doing some extra stuff, so while walking around with the jacket on, I whipped it off and flung it over TC's face, who thought that was just great. 

After that, we had to walk over a small jump and then over a tarp with water on it. TC thought that was HILARIOUS and spent a lot of time carefully knocking the jump down and then snuffling in the tarp. I was like... my friend, please. People laughed though, and this is one of many reasons my horse will never jump.

You can see the garbage can in the
background

Next was to watch some silly person run around with noise makers and a yoga ball in a little cart. He thought that was excellent. 

From there, we had to walk the long way through a bunch of bottles in a rectangular space. We had to halt in the middle of it, which TC thought meant that he should paw the bottles a bit and I was like NO. 

Next was the rein back zig zag thing, which he did surprisingly well. Open didn't get to walk forward through it, but that was no problem. 

Following that, we side passed to a mailbox, opened it, took out a stuffed spider, shook it over our head, then put it back and side passed back. TC thought that was fine and I did an extra move by sticking it on his head. 

Next was walking over a garbage bag in the shape of a spider with big googly eyes. TC was great with that one last time and this time. 

Then we had to do a spiral in and out around some cones at the trot. I was half expecting this to be our downfall, but I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was! The last tiniest circle wasn't terribly balanced, but that's okay. 

Such a nice day too!

Our third to last obstacle was rolling the barrel, which he clearly remembered from last time and he was much improved. What a dude. 

Then we had to walk around a barrel that had a pvc pipe attached to it, we held one side of it and kind of spun around. Open had to rein back the circle and that took us FOREVER. 

And finally, our last obstacle. We had to drag a full on tree branch... TC walked right up to it super confidently, but we haven't dragged that many things. I made a mistake because we got halfway to our destination without him actually noticing that it was coming with us. I could have sworn he saw it...  He did not. He spooked and went to zip off. I think I could have salvaged it by stopping him in his tracks, but I just let him go and then we restarted and he was totally fine. Woops!

The competition was tight, but we ended up winning the open division!!! We got ourselves another blue ribbon and we got a lot of praise from everyone about how amazing our connection was. We only got a couple of questions about the TCS too, so that was cool. 

I cannot wait for the next one, I think they do them twice a year. 

Such a good boy!

I think next year we may try our hand at an Equine Trail Sports competition. They have them a little north of Sacramento at a couple of places. I think TC would love to do them and I'd love to have something to work towards that isn't just dressage. I think we also may try a Trail Trial, we'll see what I can get into our calendar.