The Trail Challenge

On Saturday, my dad and I chose to go to the Trail Challenge instead of the rodeo. The rodeo main event was in the evening, when we already had other plans. It would have been nice to go out and support the slack runs during the day, but the trail challenge sounded intriguing and I know I will have a chance to attend rodeos later this summer with my sister and her boyfriend. Who will be more appropriate cowboy hunting company, anyway.

The trail challenge was at a horse and riders club. The property housed a large arena and a nice clubhouse complete with fireplace, kitchen, and restrooms. By the time we got there (ahem- yes, we got lost) they were on a lunch break and frying up some burgers in the clubhouse kitchen. So we had a burger. They announced that after lunch, contestants would be running through the trail course again, but in reverse order and it would be timed.

Horses on the lunch break. The weather was muggy and everyone was mellow.

The course was posted on the clubhouse door so I took a look. It was a fairly typical trail course. When you first came in, you had to start along the rail and go through this hanging curtain of plastic flags. Which is in the background of this picture and looked pretty scary. I'm not sure My Boy would walk through that.

Next, you rode along the outside of the arena rail. I did not get any pictures of this area, sorry. I thought I took more pictures, but I must have been taking them in my head. There was a platform you had to ride onto and do a 360 turn, a gravel/dirt mound to ride up and over, a ditch with water to walk through. Then you had to trot a figure eight between two trees, and ride up to the arena gate, open it, and ride through. Once you were back inside the arena, you had to go over four large tree logs, then cross a teeter-totter platform. Then, you rode through these branches.

Next, you had to go to the poles arranged in an "L" shape and back through them. Oh goodness, this proved to be a challenge for a lot of the riders. Once through, you loped a circle to the left, then stopped at another log, side passed over, and then did a turn on the forehand. Let's see....oh yes, then you took a slicker off of the pole, put it on, rode to the next pole, and took it off. Then, a raised footbridge. And last, the hay feeder. Or whatever it is called, it is the feeder round bales of hay go in. It was tilted on it's side like this:

And the horses either walked, loped (oh Nelly, I kept my fingers crossed that those rider's kept their heads down) or refused to go through at all. The whole time I watched this event, I kept thinking of what a fun challenge it would be to take My Boy through the course and see how he did. This picture make it look like Rosie and I were the only spectators at the event, but there were several sets of bleachers and since we had a dog, we chose the furthest one out.

Hmmm.....whats that under the bleachers?

A very smart dog lying in the cool grass.

Here are some of the competitors waiting for their round. The little black Arab in the front did very well for the two younger girls who competed on him.

This mule was very cool. I liked his color and stocky build. I wanted the long ear to clean up the competition. He did not do that, but, he did pretty well.
I heard the trail challenge organizer telling someone else that he was a bit disappointed in the turnout. They only had around a dozen competitors. My guess is that several of these were members of the horse and riders club, as most of them seemed to know each other fairly well.
There seems to be an increase in these kinds of competitions lately. Also "big" right now is the extreme cowboy race. If you have ever watched Craig Cameron's show on the RFD channel, you know what I mean. But I wonder how a horse's experience at riding through and over obstacles on real trails transfers to the trail obstacles in an arena? You know, I think this trail competition thing could be something I would really enjoy doing on My Boy. Maybe a trail challenge is in our future?