Roscoe's First "Outside" Ride (Day 53)

DAY 53: We traveled to a new place today! Mokelumne River Ranch in Thornton, California hosted the Nor-cal Downunder Brumbies October practice. It has a nice covered arena and an OBSTACLE COURSE so our October theme was to de-spook (desensitize) our horses! Prior to today’s adventure, On Day 52 (a light work day) Roscoe got some round pen time at home. Covered what we have been working on including the Dread Exercise 6 (Yield the Forequarters)! Our round-pen does not have the most level footing but we still managed two (2) steps, four (4) times on each side without any fuss (a little confusion at first but hey, it’s only day two with that exercise). Then it was bath and snack time. Early morning on Day 53 we loaded up and headed down to Thornton, California. It is about 1.5 hours from Placerville but well worth the drive. Mokelumne River Ranch is a beautiful facility. Nice round pen, a great covered arena, lots of places to sit and watch beautiful horses (we had a nice picnic lunch) and then there is obstacle course! Wow! The obstacles range from fairly easy to difficult in nature. They were formed to look like they were part of a trail, but with good footing and lots of space. The also have a half-mile “track” with great footing that you can walk, trot or lope your horse on and a levy trail! In short it was a thing of beauty.

There was a group of ten at the session. We did our traditional club warm up of Lunge for Respect 1 and 2, Backing, Yielding Hindquarters 1 & 2, and Flexing. Then we broke up into Fundamental and Intermediate groups and worked on skills we were challenged by or needed help with. The spirit of fellowship and camaraderie is always good at our practices but today it felt even better. The group has come a really long way in a year. Roscoe got some tweaking on Yielding Forequarters and increasing his “energy” on his backing. We formally introduced Sending as an exercise but with all othe other ground work we have done this was simply a combination of exercises he already knew so the process was simple. Nice “wins” in those areas. Groundwork took about an hour and then we had a short break to tack up. Some of the group had time constraints so they hit the obstacle course under saddle. Those of us without said constraints rode in the covered arena first. Roscoe worked on the Cruising lesson, One Reign Stops (I need to do more of those now) and Follow the Fence. He was a little distracted by Annie, a very pretty Quarter Horse mare own by Randy. Still, he did a good job for me. W had a nice mix of walks and trots and I never needed to use the spanker ( I did make a motion towards it twice when Roscoe was looking at Annie and that got his attention). We got some points from Dave and Randy about leg cues and positions that might help refine Roscoe’s steering. We used those pointers to test his understanding and create a starting point for improvement. This is always a god thing! We wrapped this up and then walked the horses to the obstacle course!

Because this was Roscoe’s first “outside ride” and because it was a group setting I thought it wise to walk him with a lead line through the obstacles first. Laurie and Argent did the same. It was good preparatory work and gave Roscoe some real confidence. Some of the obstacles were of a level that were a little too hard for Roscoe in his current physical condition by we examined all of them. Then we saddled up and rode the ones we felt he could do (several times each), we played in the “barrel/pole arena” which had four barrels (lots of circles around the barrels) and then we “serpentined” around the poles. There was a fair amount of trotting between stations and on the flat track, some nice breaks and even a little loping before he tired out. We had one mini-spook at a large bird in the bushes but that was it. It was a great experience for us both and our group plans to make this an annual (or bi-annual) experience! It was great to be able to work our horses outside the arena while applying all the skills of the Method our horses knew. A day of mental, physical and even spiritual exercise that everyone enjoyed! Have to love a day full of “wins!