Back on the Trails

It has been quite some time since I took TC out on the trails at our local trail facility. Honestly I can't remember the last time I took him off the property for a trail ride. 

Happy ears!

I'm super lucky that we have a very convenient hillside to ride on at the ranch. I can do one loop in 25 minutes and two loops in 45 minutes and it's quite a bit of climbing. Because of that, I stopped needing to haul him out weekly for hill work to keep his stifle functional, but I still would take him out for longer rides and for fun. 

That is, until we went through everything we went through. I've tried to bring him back a few times, but the one facility that is my default trail facility has a lot of hills, and I've not been able to get him fit enough to feel like I can take him there and do the full loop that we do. Honestly, I've also not wanted to take the time to do it either, I really lost a lot of motivation to do much riding with all the issues we were having.

So much fun

On Sunday though, I decided it was time to start getting him used to hauling out and trail riding again. And it was so much fun! 

We got to the facility and there was some kind of fancy photoshoot happening with a girl in a beautiful dress and a friesian all dressed up with matching ribbons in his mane. TC unloaded and was surprisingly quiet, I thought he might think that we were there for a photoshoot with the way he was watching them. 

The mustard is kind of crazy

The bay area really can be beautiful

A little boy came over and seemed very interesting in petting TC. His grandmother asked if they could and I said yes, TC loves kids. And then the closer the kid was brought to TC, the more TC eyed him and the more the boy cried. Poor TC, denied a photoshoot and friendship. 

I tacked him up and hopped on and he was so so good immediately. Again, this is our normal trail facility and he's been ridden there since he was a baby. But it was a bit cold and windy and outside of the fancy friesian, we were the only horse there. We marched out to the gate on a loose rein and I very stupidly put on my instagram how chill he was. 

Love these trails

Because after that he started screaming and showing me all the stuff that was different since he'd gone there two years ago. Like yeah, they added a sign there, I'm sorry, I should have let them know not to change the place at ALL in the years since you have been here. 

But it was still a super pleasant ride, just like when he was a baby, if he was getting a bit unruly (and these days that's just whinnying and like, walking with a lot of huffiness), he gets pointed up a hill. 

I thought this was so funny

Happy boy (mostly)

I wasn't sure how much of the trail I actually wanted to do, I figured I'd see how he felt. He was going to have Monday off regardless and he's been doing both loops at home, plus some extra work on the tracks, adding up to about 75 minutes of light to moderate hill work. This was about 30 minutes more than that and a bit more climbing. 

He got a little over halfway still with enough lung capacity to scream and stare aggressively through the mustard at people, so I decided to do the whole loop. 

It's so gorgeous there

 

We got to the end of the ride with him feeling a bit tired, but still not so tired he didn't try to take me on a second loop. He got to meet two women who wanted to pet him and so I said yes and he got some attention. And he only had one minor spook at the end when two cyclists came bombing down the hill behind him and slammed on their brakes, skidding directly behind TC. 

He zipped forward about two strides before I turned around. The cyclists took that to mean they should race by us and he handled that just fine, but I called after them that like hey, you should probably ask the rider before doing that. Luckily he is the best boy and even without seeing a bike for actual years, he didn't care. 

Unsure of going back home

Tired boy after a trail ride

Finally I got him back to the trailer with a lot of protesting from him, he really didn't want to leave. When he got home, Rico was very happy to see him, and TC rolled, grazed a bit, and took a nap standing in his porch next to Rico. 

I was super pleased with the whole ordeal! He was stellar and best of all, we made it all the way around for the first time in YEARS. I'm so grateful to have this horse back. 

Hauling Out During the Storm

Well we just had a big storm here in the bay. My arena did a really good job holding up, it started raining on Saturday afternoon and I managed to ride Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday before it rained all day Wednesday and Thursday. 

That was fine, because it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! But on Friday, it was not raining, but my arena was too wet to ride in. 

I've been really wanting to stick with our rehab schedule, so I decided to try hauling over to the nearest barn with a covered arena and seeing whether I could at least get SOME work out of TC. 

That was a BAD idea. 

I can't remember the last time he stood
at the trailer and reared and reared

This is the same covered arena as the neighbor arena to his breeder's barn. A barn he has not... loved to work in. But he was FOUR at the time. I figured he was a full ten years older now and that he would be fine. He wasn't. 

Honestly, I don't blame him. He's pretty fit right now and he'd just had two days off, locked in on his paddock (vs having access to his 1+ acre pasture). Then I stuffed him in a trailer to go somewhere that wasn't the vet, which he hasn't done in over a year. And then when he unloaded, there was not a horse in sight. 

Then I tried to leave him tied at the trailer to go sign a release form and put the ring fee in their box.

This was how he unloaded

I ended up instead taking him over to the box to drop off the release form and money and that was a bad idea since he then really started to panic. 

After that, I thought that getting him to walk over to where he could see some horses was a good idea. It was in that, once I managed to get him over there, he was the calmest he had been all day. But that wasn't saying much and he still was completely losing it. 

Standing as narrow and as tall as he
possibly can

In the past, I would have tried to work him through it, but I didn't want to risk anything - his potential neck stuff, my safety, the trust we've developed between us again. He's 98% really the most perfect creature, there's no reason to "work through" the 2% of the time where he's losing his goddamn mind. 

I ended up just carefully flying my horse shaped kite back to the trailer and stuffing him into it. He threw himself against my trailer until we were back on the main road, and three minutes later we pulled into the ranch. He stared at me through the window with the whites of his eyes showing, but then quietly unloaded and was totally back to normal the moment he had his feet on the gravel. 

I think he's convinced that we experienced a collective nightmare or something. I got him out a little later that day to brush him and do some bodywork stuff with him. He was super quiet and relaxed in the cross ties, even yawned a bunch. 

I can't emphasize enough how quiet
this horse is generally, this umbrella
flew into him and he was so excited

I think I made the right decision. If this were a pattern for him, sure, I'd have done something about it. But this was a freak thing. 

I do think I'm going to bring Sundance over next time, or coordinate with the trainer there to go on a day where there are quiet babysitter type horses being ridden in the covered arena. The barn is not a particularly bustling place in the winter, so I don't blame him for thinking that I took him to a haunted barn or something. I figured he'd be fine since he's willing to go to the trail facility all by himself, but he's also been there a lot more. 

Anyway, I think we'll stick to road walking on the days my arena is too wet to ride! Luckily for me, the very next day, my arena was fine. 

Sundance's Recent Outings

Little Sundance has had three outings the last three weekends in a row. I've been riding him 2-3x per week all summer to give myself something else to do than TC's rehab stuff. And so I decided to bother him with some travel. 

Who is that tiny pony in the warmblood
sized trailer??

Three weeks ago I took him over to our local trail facility, mostly because I hadn't hauled my rig in a long time and didn't want my first haul in all that time to be hauling the four hours to the vet and back in one day. 

Sundance LOVED it and actually tried to delay getting into the trailer to go home. He and I just did this paved bottom loop which, because he's barefoot, he got to walk in the middle of. He was passed by joggers, cyclists, and even some people walking (he is the slowest walker) and didn't mind. He even let me bring my binoculars and look at birds while we were out there. 

Happy pony!

The following weekend, I decided to bring him over to my niece's riding lesson since I knew my mom would be there and I could bully her into riding him. I participated in the lesson on him ("racing" my niece from one end of the arena to the other) and then shoved my mom on him. She walked all over the property and trotted in every arena! Pretty good for a woman who has declared several times that she is DONE with riding. 

It was super cute to see my mom and my nieces riding together (the little one got to have a pony ride). Maybe next year I'll bring both TC and the pony over and we can have three generations riding at once. 

No pictures from that, so here is one
from this last weekend

Then this last weekend, I decided to stuff the pony in the trailer again and take him over to the ranch competition. Now, TC has done this competition several times and performed very well. It got to the point where I'd just arrive after the practice commenced, walk the course on foot, and then go get TC, do the course cold, and still win. 

If there's two things TC likes, it's people and obstacles. And playing with obstacles in front of a crowd of people, all ooing and ahhing over how large and impressive and bombproof you are? His ego has never been bigger than when he has done these ranch competitions. 

Meanwhile this is what we do at home

Sundance on the other hand... is still bothered by normal things. Like he didn't like the pool noodles touching him. And the plastic bags flapping wasn't his favorite thing. And the fact that the bridge was up on a pole so it thunked down as he crossed it caused him to leap off of it. 

I felt bad comparing him to TC because he genuinely did SUCH a good job for a pony who was pretty skeptical of my antics when we met. He made it through the noodles, and he survived the plastic bags. He did walk over the bridge with some clicker training help. And outside of those, he backed through the Z of poles, he let me carry a flag all over, he actually walked through the plastic bottles, and he even let me drag a bag of cans from his back which I was not expecting he'd tolerate. 

And we did it all bareback! 

All the plastic bottles, and he walked
over them!

Buuuut I opted not to compete. First, I had already been on him for an hour when practice was closed and we had to leave. And then it was going to be a full hour before we even started competing. I had other things I had to do that day so decided to pack up and head out. Plus I will admit, TC has completely spoiled me. 

It was a great day though! This weekend I'm out of town, but once I'm back, I think I might keep up the weekly travel sessions with the pony. It's been good to remind myself of what I'm working toward with TC. And it's great for the pony to get some outings in, he does seem to enjoy them even if this one wasn't his favorite. 

Running I ETS

This last weekend, TC and I competed in our very first ETS! 

ETS stands for Equine Trail Sports and it's basically a way more formal version of the ranch competitions we did last year that TC loved so much. 

We ended up just going up for the in hand class on Saturday, it was super hot and staying overnight ended up being a bit too much to deal with given how my work schedule has been. But it was super worth a long day trip (and TC and I have recovered from it)! 

Hanging with friends! Peep Peony's adorable baby
horse Goose on the end

Since I assume a lot of people who read this blog are here from the glory days of dressage, I'm going to quickly go over what an ETS entails, at least the in hand class. Apologies if I make this even more confusing. 

There were eight obstacles and each obstacle had three levels to choose from. Level 1 was the most basic and Level 3 was the most advanced. Each level is worth the corresponding number of points. To qualify for the Novice division, you need 8 to 11 points, intermediate is 12 to 18 (I think maybe 19) points, and Advanced is 19 to 24 points. You can get 8 points by doing Level 1 for all eight obstacles. You can get 24 points by doing Level 3 for all eight obstacles. 

For each obstacle, regardless of the Level you do, you get a rider score and a horse score out of ten. Then your level is a multiplier, so if you do Level 1 really really well and get a 10/10 on both, that'll be way better than doing Level 2 terribly and getting a 2/10 on both horse and rider scores despite Level 2 having a multiplier. 

They differentiate between horse and rider so that if your horse is perfect and you're screaming like a banshee, they can give your horse a good score and you a bad score. Or if you're perfect but your horse is screaming like a banshee, they can give you a good score and your horse a bad score. If you're both terrible or both great, you can get the same score. 

So there's some strategy to it! We competed in the Novice division, so I aimed to do five obstacles at Level 1 (5 points) and three obstacles at level 2 (6 points) for a total of 11 points.

Went on a walk around the property

We arrived in time to watch the first round of horses and have a friend go over the course with me. Then it was our turn! Here were the obstacles in the order that we did them:

Pedestal (Cross over obstacle)

We opted to do Level 2 for this obstacle and it was a bad idea. For Level 1, you had to get both of your horse's front feet on the pedestal and then have them step off of it. Given that TC likes to stand on things, I think we would have scored better if we'd done Level 1. But I had a tough time deciding what to do, and Level 2 had you walk straight over it. I figured TC would be fine walking over it and I was wrong. We attempted twice but he only managed to get his front feet on it and then straddled it with his hind feet (it was VERY narrow). Oh well! 

For this one, we got a 4/10 for me and a 4/10 for TC for a total of 8 points. The multiplier took that 8 to a 10.40. 

I took *very* shitty pictures the whole day, oh
well, but this is the pedestal

Ring (Turn on the forehand)

Filled with dread when there were options for TC to stand on things that he wasn't supposed to stand on, we decided to just do Level 1 for this obstacle. There was a tiny metal square we had to put his front feet in and then we just had to do a 180 degree turn on the forehand. 

In true TC fashion, he stepped on the sides of the square (it was totally safe, just annoying) but he did do it less than I thought he would! So we ended up with a 5/10 for both of us for a total of 10 points. No multiplier because it was Level 1. 

Watching the competition from his day pen, he was
immediately destructive, apparently he hasn't
outgrown wanting to dig holes and climb
pipe panels yet

Teeter Totters (Cross over obstacle)

I was certain that TC and I could do Level 2 or even Level 3 with any teeter totter obstacle. He is a star when it comes to standing on things, after all. But both Level 2 and 3 used the BIG teeter totter and he's never been on one that giant. I decided that day was not the day to push it and so we opted for Level 1, which was just to walk across the teeter totter. 

TC was absolutely perfect and we both got a 10/10 for a total of 20 points! 

You can kind of see the teeter totter behind the judge

Sidepass 'T' (Sidepass)

TC somehow learned to side pass like a BOSS in the last few years. Like I didn't expect this. I think the belly tickler from the ranch competitions helped him? I don't know. He went years being kind of awful at side passing and now he's so good at it and let me tell you, we did not work on it. 

So I opted to do Level 2 for this obstacle. It was three logs in the shape of a capital T. For Level 2, we had to side pass over half the top of the T facing the bottom part, then at the intersection, do a turn on the forehand and side pass over the bottom part of the T. 

TC did want to stand on the logs instead of side passing, so I ended up having to do a lot of management, reducing our scores to 8/10 for both of us. Because of the multiplier, we got a 20.80. So you can see how even if we'd gotten a 10/10 for both of us for Level 1, doing Level 2 but getting an 8/10 ended up being better points-wise! 

LOL my favorite picture of TC and
Goose

Bridge (Cross over obstacle)

I was unsure of whether to do Level 1 or Level 2 for this. The bridge was quite high off the ground, and Level 1 was just putting your front feet on it and then backing off, while Level 2 was halting in the middle of the bridge. I didn't trust TC's sense of self preservation to not fall off the bridge if he had to stop forward motion, so I opted for Level 1. We each got a 10/10 for a total score of 20.00. 

And you can see the teal bridge, also my horse's
chonky belly

Get on your Soapbox (Forward movement)

For this obstacle, we had to stand on a mattress and send the horse around us. Level 1 was just in walk and Level 2 was at the trot. Level 2 also involved halting for 3 seconds and then bringing the horse toward us. Well, oops. I forgot about that part. But we did do Level 2 and TC was PERFECT and the judge said "you can put him in my trailer any day," but still gave us a 4/10 for each of us because I didn't do the obstacle properly. Oops! Sorry TC! Total score was 10.40. 

Bright and early at the gas station!
Literally the worst pictures

The Narrow Path (Forward movement)

This was another one where anything beyond Level 1 was going to be ridiculous.  There was an L shaped pathway with big metal logs on each side of it. At first I thought it was a rein back obstacle and I think TC would actually be really good at that. But nope, Level 1 you had to walk your horse through it, Level 2 you had to trot your horse through it.

I need to work on trotting TC in hand, he is not a candidate for a breed show. Every time I trot him in hand (not longeing, just alongside him), he thinks it's the most hilarious game and usually leaps into the air, strikes out, and then tries to snatch at me. It does not help matters that I laugh at him every time. So we opted for Level 1. We got a 10/10 each for a total of 20 points. 

We did get a cute picture of them too

Tunnel (Cross under)

Remember that covered wagon from last obstacle show? Imagine that, darker, with logs inside of it, and ANIMAL PELTS ON THE WALLS. 

This is where this sport is sold for me. When we were walking in, TC saw one of these animal pelts for the first time, it was hanging on the gate. He *lost it* and was snorting with his neck all arched and his entire body rigid. We were blocking the way and I quickly tried to shuffle him out of the way (he would not move) to let some people in and some people out. The people trying to come in said "don't worry about it, my horse is going to have the same reaction, just let him get used to it" and the people trying to come out said "oh, it's okay, we are in no rush, let him work through it" and then the judge yelled over to me "you can let him smell it, it's pretty scary if they haven't seen that before!" 

Like literally he'd be judged on his tolerance of these things in the tunnel (which is why I saved it for last) and everyone was so kind about letting me do my clicker training. And the judge still gave me a 10/10 and him a 9/10 when we did the obstacle, despite her watching me clicker train it earlier. Like, wow. This sport is so much "for the horse" and I just love it. I've definitely been told multiple times to "not let him do that" when TC has been nervous at dressage shows. 

Anyway, 19 points to round us out (Level 2 was like, turning around and doing it again and I forget what Level 3 was, we obviously did Level 1). 

The dreaded tunnel

I ended up heading out before I knew what we'd gotten but the next morning, the scores were posted! We got 130.60 overall and that was good enough for THIRD PLACE (out of twelve!!). I am SO PROUD OF HIM. This was our first rated show in this new-to-both-of-us discipline and he was such a star. 

Like, I can't believe this is the same horse who was a chronic bolter and was so spooky. I still remember writing this hilarious post about things I hated because of him. Going to those bombproofing clinics out of desperation eventually led us to this amazing discipline. I'm glad to have something to work towards that isn't dressage. 

Why you house the horse? Horse
hates to be housed

We have two schooling shows coming up and then we'll be back in the rated ring in July. We're definitely camping overnight - a family friend has a solar powered electric fence I can use to keep him contained! I cannot wait, and I think TC is excited for the next one too!

SCCHA Obstacle Play Day Pt 2

Here's part 2 of our fun at the obstacle play day! Last we left off, we were halfway through the course and the horse had only just started to calm the fuck down. 

Walking Over Logs

There was a woman in the course walk who was pointing out how unfair this log pile was for short horses to walk over. And another woman pointed out that there are obstacles that were unfair for large horses too. TC conquered the log pile easily with his giant feet and big stride. I had a moment of thinking he might get claustrophobic in there and try to jump out, but he was pretty relaxed by this point in the course. 

Most of the time it isn't great to have a large horse
for these shows but for this obstacle it was

Standing On a Tire

But then the next obstacle involved him having to stand on a platform (a filled-in tire) and he is so giant that it felt like sitting on an elephant who was standing on a ball. He didn't quite understand that I wanted all his feets on the tiny tire but he did make an effort and I took it and praised him quite a lot

These are not large

Photo Booth

This was such a cute obstacle, they had us stand off to the side and get some pictures of the other riders on course. TC was an absolute pro and pretty smug about it. 

Had to catch this smug horse when I put my phone
away and he thought I might have cookies

We had another minute to wait but TC had settled in finally. We hung out until the next judge was ready for us. 

Ring Toss

We had to trot around some plants with a hula hoop and then stop and toss the hula hoop over one of the plants. TC was fine with the hula hoop and the tossing, he did some head shaking in the trot but I think by this point he'd settled enough to not murder me. Excellent. 

I love it, I will eat it - TC

Not fussed

Windmill

I forgot to say that it was kind of cold and windy this day so when we had to side pass around a little windmill, I didn't know how TC would handle it. Would he spook? Apparently not. He didn't spook, but I've never had to hold a horse back from stuffing his face into actual whirling blades. He was ADAMANT that he poke it with his nose and I was like... my friend... this is a metal windmill. 

Begging me to let him touch it

Duck Pond

This last obstacle was ADORABLE! We had to take a net and fish two little rubber ducks out of the makeshift pond with it. I picked up the net and TC was NOT okay with it for some reason. WTF. I have carried around my archery stuff with him, carried around my tripod, carried around a shrieking toddler... but a pvc pipe with a little net on the end? Terrifying. What was even more terrifying were the ducks. I did NOT expect him to spook but as I grabbed for my ducks, he sat down and ran backwards. I stuffed the net in front of his nose and he was like OH THE DUCKS OF COURSE and calmed right down. But I only got one duck, oh well! 

Skeptical about the net

Very concerned about the ducks in the net

I walked him out and as per usual, the horse is a celebrity. I think he just sticks out like a sore thumb and has this super chaotic-good type of personality. I got a lot of compliments with how I handled the duck situation too, which was really nice. The vibe is so different than at dressage shows, I'm kind of getting used to how friendly everyone is. I am definitely the kind of person you have to come up to and force your friendliness on, especially lately with work being so insane, I've needed way more alone time than usual. But everyone was so sweet and easy to talk to! 

I took him back to the trailer to hang out after letting him graze a lot while chatting with the person who won the advanced division the day before! He and his horse have been doing this for 18 years together! And his horse is Rico's age, 27! I think Rico would have loved the obstacle shows, maybe I'll let him play with some of the obstacles I'm making for TC at home. 

Back at the trailer, I ate some lunch and TC told me all about how much it hurts his soul to be tied to a trailer with a hay bag. He got a lot of carrots for his suffering. The woman next to me came back and we chatted about how it went, she does some pretty cool western stuff that went over my head and I just kind of gestured to my pawing machine and was like "yeah this thing was a bolter in his youth so I signed him up for bombproofing clinics to try to chill him out but instead I just discovered that the only thing he likes more than bolting is chaos so now I bring him to these events?"

Making sure the ducks are safe

I then decided to take TC on a walk to give him a break from the horrible plight of being tied for twenty minutes. It was lunch time, so we got to explore the part of the property that wasn't being used for the competition. There were some bridges and steps that we walked over and TC was REALLY EXCITED that obstacle time wasn't over. The first bridge he flung himself onto in a really dramatic way.  Then he actually took off trotting and dragged me over another bridge that he promptly ate shit trying to get onto. He did this several more times before I finally got him under control. 

We even ran into another person who does clicker training, I apologized because her horse was looking at me like he wanted to get paid too. But it's so cool to just casually run into other clicker training people in the wild. I really love this sport. 

I used the clicker to help him learn how to do the teeter totter backwards for the first time! Stepping up on the tall side and bringing it down. I was super proud of him for that! He also walked over a suspension bridge for the first time. He thought hard about jumping onto me (I was to the side) but then thought better of it and continued. 

Your life is the worse (he had water
but was flinging it all over so I took it
down for a bit)

Trails through the campground!

I also decided to walk over to the campground to see how it looked. It's SUCH a nice campground! There are four little pipe pens to every picnic table/campsite and most of them were accessible enough to get your truck and/or entire rig near. I'm definitely going to camp next time we do something like this. TC thought it was great and had a blast walking through the more wooded area. 

I stayed a little longer to watch some more of the competition and say goodbye to everyone. I wasn't going to wait the entire day for the awards. I figured we'd been last in our division due to my animal being so feral. It didn't bother me though, I'm glad we challenged ourself with the Intermediate division and I'm glad we had this outing before we head to our first real ETS this weekend. 

Look how cute these campsites are! This one was
a bit overgrown (didn't want to post pictures of
peoples' setups)

It was great to see how he was at a brand new facility for the first time... I guess since October, but still. It was also great to get my rig out for an outing before hauling a lot longer. And it was good to see how TC did over obstacles he'd never seen before. 

We'll definitely try to make the next one of these! And hopefully we'll be camping next time too! I got a few more things to make my trailer camping situation even more comfortable. Hopefully this will be the last year I camp out of it because at the top of my list is to buy a camper for my truck so that I can do more comfortable horse camping adventures. 

SCCHA Obstacle Play Day Pt 1

At the last minute, I signed up for a schooling show! It was perfect timing because we'll be competing for real at this facility in July and we also have our first official ETS this weekend. The horse hasn't done obstacles since last fall and we haven't traveled much since then either. 

It was so fun!

It ended up being a great day! My truck and trailer both needed new tires this spring, so that was a bummer for my bank account, but I'm glad I could stop worrying about their age. They felt great hauling over the hill in the morning to get to the facility. 

We got there about a quarter of the way through the course walk. I left TC in the torture chamber trailer and got us registered, then I walked the course. 

Look how cool this covered wagon is!

I had signed us up for Intermediate because Advanced sounded hard and Novice sounded easy. There were no descriptions, I just decided that arbitrarily. The Advanced was hard but even the Novice was no joke! These are some hardcore obstacle people in comparison to the local ranch competitions TC and I did last year. 

After walking the course and deciding that as long as TC didn't get too enthusiastic, it would be fine, I went to get him out of the trailer. He unloaded, saw the obstacles, and lost his ever loving mind wanting to go over to them. 

I took him on a walk around the property that wasn't blocked off for the event. I realized that this was going to be the first time we didn't get to practice the obstacles beforehand. Hmmm. TC tried very hard to yank me over to the obstacles and I had to drag him back to the trailer to tack him up. 

Why must the horse be contained

Now, there was definitely a lot of sass radiating out of this animal that made me realize that he was going to consider launching me so that he could get to the obstacles sooner. You'd think the best plan would be to ride him down, but this horse doesn't ride down or longe down. He just gets chock full of adrenaline and audacity and is an actual nightmare the more he does. This is the type of day where at home, I would have immediately turned him out and watch him gallop around and around. 

So I decided to not ride him. We did ground work and then I got on him about 3 minutes before I was supposed to go out on course. 

Except that the judge wasn't ready so we had to stand and wait pace in small circles because someone thought that standing still may require rearing, which I think is a feeling he's learned that he can give me so that he can keep moving. 

Reining Back Serpentine

Obviously the first obstacle included reining back, so we did not do particularly well on this one. Normally the horse is quite decent at reining back, but he was all bunched up and wanting to poke the obstacle we were reining back along. When I wouldn't let him, he figured his butt might be able to poke it, so he swung his hips around and then refused to do anything but walk directly backwards toward the obstacle. I had to take a step forward to get him to not hit the obstacle. But then he figured it out and it ended up okay. 

The first three obstacles

One Rein Weave

The next obstacle included weaving around plants while only holding onto one rein. I knew this was going to be tough since the horse doesn't neck rein and it turns out I should probably teach him. I ended up picking the wrong rein. I decided that I loved pulling on the left rein that I may as well use that one. Except the first obstacle was to the left so when we went to turn back away from it, he was like nah and tried to drag me to it so he could finally touch it. At least he didn't snatch a plant like this one horse did, it was so cute!

Side Pass Speed Bump

For some reason, there was a tiny speed bump headed into a grob, which had some water in it and was fenced off. We were to straddle the bump and side pass across it. The horse is shockingly good at side passing for an animal who was convinced that his legs would get permanently tangled if he ever went sideways as a young horse. But what he is not good at is ground textures, they elicit a lot of skepticism. When I did finally get him over it, he thought I might want him to jump the fence into the grob and I probably overreacted like NO YOU WILL NOT BE JUMPING THAT and he sat back like I TOLD YOU THE SPEED BUMP WAS DANGEROUS and put himself back on the safe side. We did eventually get through the obstacle though! 

Hated this thing, there were too many different
ground types

Step Up & Turn

We had to wait for a little bit after the speed bump, so we walked in small circles trying to get him to stop trying to mow down the competition so he could do more obstacles. There are always a few obstacles that remind me how gigantic my horse is. This was one of them. We had to walk up the soft side of a bank complex and then stand on top and turn around. Now, my animal is not an event horse, but at the very top of the bank complex he was certainly ready to leap off the (very small) double down bank and head off to Kentucky. But I did somehow get him turned around and he walked back down pretty quietly. 

Descriptions!

Covered Wagon

We had to walk over these narrow logs heading toward this big covered wagon made out of two gate panels and I guess some netting? It was super cool. The logs proved to be very confusing to TC, who is wide enough at his base to step to the side of each log, which was hilarious and not the point of the obstacle, I will be getting small logs to practice over. He then is a very claustrophobic horse, so I was SO PROUD of him for walking through the covered wagon and not losing his shit about it, especially on a day like this day where he didn't have a lot of shit to lose. 

Concerned horse, but he was so good!

Barrel Roll

I thought this would be a shoe-in for this horse, but it turns out his chaotic nature was dialed up and about a third of the way down the chute for the barrel, he thought it was hilarious to twist the barrel around, which is how he plays with poles in the arena. I didn't want to give up (or have him think that the point of barrels is to twist them) so I had him shove the barrel down sideways. He thought that was kind of stupid because why shove the barrel down when you can stand on the logs that are containing it? Or on the barrel itself which I had to yell "NO" at him lest he squash their barrel and/or hurt himself. 

Before he twisted the barrel

But by this point, he was pretty relaxed and having a great time. But this post is getting insanely long, so I'll post the second half of the course and day tomorrow!