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Post by horselover4life on Feb 15, 2016 23:22:25 GMT
I know we all have come from different backgrounds and with that have exposure to different elements of "horse"....
My son is riding trail courses in Special Olympics. Riders being safe is most important...
His instructor and I went to a information meeting and were exposed to some new obstacle challenges...
So, now we are trying to make them as we expect to see some of them at competitions...
Now, here is where my friends come in....
We saw a "car wash".... pool noodles or streamers suspended from a bar you need to walk through.
What we don't know is dimensions to use to replicate....
Any idea??
We saw a "keyhole"....flour poured on the ground that you walk in, walk the perimeter and exit without stepping on any line.
Again, it was not well designed when we saw it and was lopsided.
Any idea of how big the "circle dimension" is and the width of the entry/exit alley?
We already have and do a bridge, figure-8 barrels, wheel, labyrinth, elaborate labyrinth with a back box, turn box, walk-through, poles to weave {gymkhana games}, a solid object {pipe} drag, small crossbar jump, mailbox, halt sign, back through a "L". We also have a poly barrel that the horse will push around like it was a ball to you...
Can you think of anything else we could try to expose horse and rider to???
There is also a equitation class where they must ride a particular pattern with turns on forehand and hindquarter, and a solid halt and back.
HELP!!!!
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mistersmom
Junior Member
Abita Springs, LA
Posts: 3,749 
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Post by mistersmom on Feb 16, 2016 0:37:40 GMT
I'm pretty sure Terry built a "car wash" so hopefully she will come by and let you know about how she built hers. Unfortunately I can't really help very much. Perhaps get on youtube and search for videos of other courses (Special Olympics or not).
I hope you are able to take a bunch of pictures when he is showing. We'd love to see it!
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mingiz
Junior Member
Los Lunas, NM
Posts: 3,320
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Post by mingiz on Feb 19, 2016 4:51:16 GMT
Hay ring on it's side.
A frame, upside down U with streamers hanging from it
A campfire.
Pine or cedar trees placed so that the rider has to weave through them.
An alley with goats tied to it or a chicken in a crate at the end.
Logs placed on the ground to resemble down trees.
Lit flares on the ground.
Those shiny silver helium filled balloons tied low to high.
a teeter totter type obstacle
Stopping to pick up a flag and carry to next area.
Taking a rain coat off of a tree and carry to next tree and re hang.
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Post by horselover4life on Feb 19, 2016 11:21:26 GMT
This horse has been exposed to so much already and is very level-headed to start with...
Goat, chickens, flags, raincoats have them covered. All good there.
Fire...crazy horse we have!
Were burning paper yesterday and he went to investigate what was happening...this was in a barrel but flame and heat doesn't bother him.
Balloons...not sure about that one.
I bought pool noodles and hung them from his stall door...
Now both my horses think they are great for pesky fly control on their backs...Nope, not afraid of hanging stuff either touching them on back, head, ears or sides!!
Teeter tooter not sure they would use with disabled riders but will discuss that one with the coach..
Thanks ming!!
Any other thoughts....
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Terry
Junior Member
Central Illinois, USA
Posts: 1,466
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Post by Terry on Feb 20, 2016 4:52:50 GMT
Hubby made a cowboy curtain/car wash obstacle for me using pvc pipes and a shower curtain. I had him make mine with only one supporting "leg" because I wanted it to be easy enough for me to carry back and forth from the barn and round pen, but you could certainly make it with two support "legs" to make it more of a stand alone object. I think he made mine stand roughly 10 feet tall, but you might want to make it a little taller to allow more head room, and obviously it's wide enough to stretch out a standard shower curtain.
I've also used pool noodles as a flexible fence (for lack of a better name) to ride through by tying them to the round pen panels. Hubby said he is going to make me some stands for them at some point to make them a little easier to set up, but then winter arrived. :-(
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Post by horselady on Feb 20, 2016 12:50:11 GMT
The equine affair had a trail challenge and they had a soccor ball that the horse had to kick into a goalie net. could not be 100 percent perfect but the idea was there. also going into a box made with barrels. grab a pole. and that pole was to be put behind you assimilating a gate and than placed in a cup as you leave the box. do not forget mail box. horse also had to jump over a small jump than make a left jump over another. than come over a third one . like an S. the see saw was up also and the horse should stand balanced for 5 seconds. sound s like there are so many things than can be done. and i though jumping was a challenge  |
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Post by windlakeeq on Feb 20, 2016 23:47:23 GMT
We do the ACTHA events. Check out their website and click on obstacles. The plastic bottle box is pretty easy to dupilcate. Raise an item on a pulley and lower it.Pretty scary. Cross over a tarp, work around a bale of hay is pretty interesting..most want to eat it. Put on or pick up a raincoat place it on another post is always a favorite of trail inventors. Good luck,
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Post by horselover4life on Feb 21, 2016 3:29:58 GMT
Thank you all so much for the ideas, suggestions and encouragement....
We will start to work on some of these ideas tomorrow.
Some I think will be easier to accomplish than others and some I see as very challenging...
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Terry
Junior Member
Central Illinois, USA
Posts: 1,466
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Post by Terry on Feb 21, 2016 4:00:29 GMT
A friend shared this one with me on my FB page. I thought it was pretty cool. I've already asked hubby to make one for me, but with pool noodles coming in from both sides. :-)
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Post by horselover4life on Feb 21, 2016 12:23:56 GMT
We have the pool noodles from both sides covered.
We use a jump standard. The jump cups have noodle secured to them....
Then we used rails to make the horse walk through the narrow opening like a chute with noodles starting to touch them upon entry, no evading.
So now we will work on adding that overhead "car wash/shower curtain" effect to the obstacle.
So far, anything we have put to our horse he just wants a second to look at, maybe touch his nose to and then he could care less....
We so have a gem of a horse, priceless, absolutely priceless!!
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Post by horselady on Feb 21, 2016 12:31:50 GMT
do not forget umbrellas of all shapes and sizes and balloons.. oh and loud music and people cheering and clapping. i had a horse life in a paddock with balloons floating and umbrellas tied to the fence and near his stall for days until he showed no interest. took him to a show and it was raining and guess what. he was one of the best horses. no spook not caring about the floatsums. mini-graphics-rain-671032
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Post by carshon on Feb 22, 2016 15:17:54 GMT
I did a desensitizing clinic and we had to walk over a tarp that had milk jugs and aluminum cans in it - the tarp was put in a shallow indention in the indoor arena. It was awesome to try. We also had to get our horse to walk through a small narrow indention in the ground (outside) as well as a teeter totter, pool noodle, leaf blower blowing against the side of the horse (there were two or three so you had to walk between them.
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Post by horselover4life on Feb 22, 2016 15:50:35 GMT
We have ground indentations from "roll holes" so that one is no problem. And ponds currently dry so the horses walk through them, otherwise when full they stand, roll and play in the water...
Now milk jugs and aluminum cans on a tarp....
That might be a BIG problem... 
Our horses I have "tortured" by making them wear tarps, dragging them and anything else {hoses, empty feed bags} I can think of over, under, between legs, tied to their tails and left hanging on their heads...
They must trust us because they must walk when blind from the tarp on the head... 757724
They've both worn umbrellas and had them pop open near touching them...POP!! mini-graphics-rain-671032
I have never done a teeter-totter but a bridge that wiggled when stepped on {was un-level} we did....
Never experienced a leaf blower blowing air on them, but they don't care about 40-50 mph winds...
They could care less about the farm tractor running around in the field, paddock or in our backyard. Hardly move out of the way...
Adding.... no idea about balloons. I have not "tortured" either of my boys with them yet!!
Milk bottles hang in their stalls as toys and to bang and bump on them...could care less about them!!
Hondo plays ball....roll a ball to him he pushes it back at you. 
He will push a barrel around if you tell him "push it"....
Steals boxes out of my burn barrel {not lit} to play with....
I have a 1200+ pound puppy in this one.
He threw his halter at me this morning...so he then had to wear it and go get a haircut!!
Much better this time...10 minutes and he was done. Last time the exact same thing took near 2 hours of slowly coaxing...
Now he wants to play with the clipper when his mouth area is done...he is ticklish and that is one of his "spots"... 
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2016 16:23:41 GMT
Lots of good ideas here.
Now, I have only limited experience with these types of obstacles, and most of what I have seen is more of the 'extreme cowboy racing' variety (ie - probably the opposite end of the spectrum of what you are looking for). So I am not sure if any of these suggestions will be feasible or not.
One obstacle I liked was a 'barrel push' (I have no clue of the actual name) where 3 barrels were arranged in a sort of cage and the horse had to push the contraption with its chest.
I've also seen ones where things have to be dragged a short distance (usually a roping dummy or a tarp).
I have seen poles arranged on a small circle with the 'inside' end of the poles slightly raised off the ground (like a half x rail). The ones I have seen usually have 4 poles and horses are meant to trot over them.
Other things I have seen, but are not really 'obstacle' in nature include packing flags, opening and closing gates, walking with a raincoat or tarp, checking a fake mailbox, walking past various types of livestock (goats, cows, llamas ect.) ground tying, and loading into a horse trailer, walking into a Liverpool .
I'm not sure if that helps at all, as this is far from my area of 'expertise'.
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Post by horselover4life on Feb 23, 2016 18:40:34 GMT
Hi Apollo....your limited experience is not so limited!!
Your ideas are some we have never done and some we do use already...
Poles in a circle....spokes on a wheel we call it.
We use a old ground feed tub, upside down, then put landscape ties on it like "spokes on a wheel" where the horse must walk at a specified distance all the way around. No ticking or touching, knocking the poles. {so far we only do all obstacles at a walk}
Barrel push....our instructor has that "thing".... there is a name for it...
She use to train the police force horses in crowd control and that "thing" is what they used to teach them to push with their chest and shoulders in any direction...to push through a crowd as needed.
It's big and ugly and Hondo loves it!
Drag... we made one.
6' long piece of pipe with a approx. 8' rope connected to one end.
Horse and rider must drag that in a straight line. We actually taught our horses to drag it around a corner so the rope would be against their legs, sometimes getting caught. Simulates what happens during roping & branding of the cattle down here still done today {yes, Hondo can drag a steer with me aboard, although I can't throw a rope, I can drag the calf/cow as needed}
We open and close gates, do the mailbox thing, he self-loads on a trailer, and loves to walk through water...does the wearing a tarp thing.
The ground typing we would fail at...he loves to follow me if I were to walk away he would shadow me {or his rider}...
I think he would walk a wet liverpool as he walks through puddles, streams as needed.
I'm not sure about flags and folding them....I think he has had a flag carrier on his saddle as his original owner did some parading of him during show opening ceremonies....
Love the ideas all are contributing....please keep them coming. 
This horse loves his mind to be busy.....
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Post by horselover4life on Feb 25, 2016 1:16:31 GMT
Well...
Hubby hung our pool noodles in the stall door openings of both horses last night. He did a much better job of it than I did...
Today with the "brisk" winds the horses have been clunked in the head, neck, body and booty with those noodles.
Think they are now both good with seeing flying noodles, going under and threw the things... 
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Post by carshon on Feb 25, 2016 16:41:16 GMT
HL4L I had to laugh out loud at the visual of the pool noodles bonking your horses!
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Post by horselover4life on Feb 25, 2016 17:33:07 GMT
Oh carshon it was funny to see their reaction... 
They looked around to see who did it to them...
Then they glared, pinned their ears flat and made funny faces at each other like it was them hitting each other.... 
We all were laughing watching them be silly. laughing
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nhg
Junior Member
Posts: 2,429
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Post by nhg on Mar 2, 2016 2:37:41 GMT
A few interesting ones that I've seen lately are the pool noodles used so they're standing upright and they brush the horse's tummy as they sidepass over to a mailbox. Also a variation of the coat hanging on a pole and carried to another pole where one has a bucket of water and you have to carry the bucket to another bucket and dump it in. And those temporary garages that are like a tent, you ride the horse through it. Did you see what I posted on facebook the other day? It was a water obstacle that had a box that held a few inches of water but a sheet of wood or plastic or something was laid over top of the water and it floated so when the horse went to step on it the sheet would drop down into the water and it would come bubbling up through the holes. I think they call it the Vegas water something...
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Post by horselover4life on Mar 2, 2016 10:53:26 GMT
Some of those sound very advanced and rather scary to ride for the horse...what the challenge is all about!!
I'll have to go look and see if I can find what yo posted, thanks.
On another note...
Qualifying show was this past weekend.
Blue blue ribbon in the classes he was entered in....
Horse did wonderful and so did the rider!!
Now we await to see if a invitation to represent our county in state finals arrives...
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