Mobile Horse Confidence Course

I had a good excuse not to work one Saturday to do a confidence course at the barn that Maggie brought in.  It was super hot, very humid, and threatening to rain all day.  Amazingly enough, we didn't get any "real" rain until we were done and even that didn't last very long.

The day started with about an hour of instruction and demonstrations from the instructor.  From there we moved to doing all the obstacles on the ground with our horses on a lead rope.  After lunch, we mounted up and did them while riding.

Vince saw the obstacles in Maggie's front pasture and grew into a giraffe!  Madison spent 15 minutes walking him in the pasture NEXT to this one before she brought him in to start.

This first pic is a good example of how we reacted at first.  A very strong WTH!  You can see some of the other obstacles in the background.

This water obstacle turned out to be one of the hardest for everyone.  There were 7 of us in the clinic and I don't think anyone got through the water on the first try.

 It didn't take too long and Vince was going through the noodles without much of an issue.

Mata Hari was pretty much bored with the noodles right from the get go so we had to quickly escalate into some harder tasks such as side passing over this line of noodles.  That was also a non-issue.

This looks like a bridge but was actually a teeter totter.  When you step on the end, the other end goes up and as you step forward, it goes down.  This pic shows Mata Hari completely missing it but she did it with no problem over and over again!  Even riding.

This obstacle doesn't look like much but those are smashed plastic water bottles that make a crazy racket when walked over!

Flags don't much bother Vince apparently, even when they are flapping in the wind!

We were pretty much sweaty messes by this point but having fun!

By the time Maggie's husband took this picture everyone else was gone and were were just messing around with the obstacles as the instructor loaded them up to go.   Mata Hari was probably the bravest and least bothered by everything but Vince got the most improved award from being petrified of everything to start and then doing it all with ease by the end.  Maggie's horse Ritz was somewhere inbetween!