Mark
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Photo by Hal Cook
to deal with an adverse situation or skills to
navigate a new obstacle. The question now is
how riders get the skills to lower the risk of
injury.
The horse owners with the lowest odds of sustaining injury to the horse are the ones that
have “broke” horses. This sounds too simple but
a broke horse and a good rider have more tools
1. First go back to the basics of walking, trotting and
cantalouping (canter or lope) a straight line. Set up at eight
sets of cones for at least eighty feet. Yes, this sounds to
simple but we find only one out of ten can ride a straight
line at the clinics. Everyone laughs when I bring out the
cones anywhere in the world but it is always the same. The
way to ride a straight line is to focus forward and use your
legs and seat. Most try to ride the face and it will always
be a crooked line.
2. The next exercise is to ride a twenty-meter circle through
cones that are set 36” apart. Again, the way to be successful
is to look ahead and not down at the set of cones you are
riding through. You always look ahead one set of cones
and then you can run a nice circle.
3. Work on your transitions to the point where you can go
from a trot to a walk at any given point that it is asked for.
If you ask for a walk but it takes 20 feet to get it you are not
ready to move up to the cantaloupe. In level II of Mountain
Trail where you are now trotting between obstacles you
must be able to transition at the obstacle and if you can’t
you are setting yourself and your horse up for injury. In
level III you must be able to transition down to a walk from
a cantaloupe at the obstacle. This means that you need to
have the skill to transition down in an arena before you
attempt this on the Mountain Trail course. Transitions are
one skill that the safe riders have.
4. Make sure you have a soft correct backup. It is surprising
how many do not have this skill and when they need it the
horse and rider become frustrated and often put both horse
and rider in danger. If you do not have this skill find a
professional to help you for it is critical.
5. Be able to move the haunches and shoulders at will which
will also give you a nice leg yield.
6. Protect your horse with leg wraps.
7. Wisdom to avoid what appear to be unsafe or poorly
constructed obstacles. With the growth of trail obstacle
training and completions there are many obstacles which
we have seen around the globe that are very unsafe. With
the information age where we can see all kinds of obstacles
on the internet many try to copy designs without
understanding the engineering that is hidden within the
obstacle. As the refinement of the sport has grown along
with the obstacles the structural capabilities have all been
increase with safely always first in mind. The dream of a
ribbon is not worth taking the risk of navigating an obstacle
that may fail and cause injury.
8. Make sure your horse can stand still!!!! Teach this and
you will end up with a quite horse which is a joy to be
around. It is easy to teach but often not done because with
have no time to just sit and enjoy the horse.
I am sure there are many other skills that a good horse
person has but these are a few skills that I see possessed
by the rides that have the most fun and have the less
injuries and healthier horses than the average rider.
Happy Trails and Bolender Blessings.