Saturday, September 4, 2010

Obstacles and Challenges - Oh My!!

I had a WONDERFUL day today with Renegade and my OPP buddies. We had our monthly play day and the theme was obstacles. Some of us are participating in some obstacle challenges and some ACTHA rides and thought some prep might be a good idea. Some obstacles were familiar and some we upped a notch or two or three; we had a bridge – the base was two wooden platforms, the sides were some green plastic hawaiian grass skirting material, we had a couple of squeezes that were strings of patriotic metallic bunting material that blew in the breeze, we had hanging pool noodles, a water obstacle with rubber duckies, a “gate”, two barrels with a long stick (object to pick up one end make a 360 and replace the stick without it coming off the other barrel). We had whirley gigs, the log drag, backing through a “z”, backing into a box, a maypole, ride into the lake and around the pole then back out. Whew…there were ALOT of obstacles.

It was alot of fun until late in the day…I think Renegade was getting tired so he decided he had a better plan than I did and tried to take over. I ended up getting off after he put his nose on the ground and took off trotting (I had the BB pad on him instead of my saddle, had I had the saddle on I might have tried to work through it mounted but I’m not as secure on the pad yet – gotta work on my sticky butt lol!!). I had no problem riding that but I was worried about the stop. I did manage to get him stopped without me sliding down his neck and got off. We then had a “discussion” about who was in charge…wow, he did some licking and chewing after that and I got my 51% leadership back.

I’m whooped tonight and I feel like I have Gumby arms, Renegade did quite a lot of pulling on the reins trying to take over…there was no way I could be as dependable as a fence post…he’s got a STRONG neck. I also didn’t want to turn it into a battle cause I know I won’t win that one!!

We ended up on a good note with him following my lead. He loaded on the trailer no problem and when we got home he was an angel!!

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