KBR Horse Training Information

Exercising Body AND Mind

Wild Horse Boot Camp Obstacles
Part Two


  THE WATERFALL

The waterfall consists of a row of plastic streamers suspended from a plastic pipe. The purpose here is to keep the horse focused and moving quietly even though the streamers are fluttering and touching him.

The horse should investigate the streamers but not shy from them. If the handler can keep the horse focused, he can deal with the stimulus of the streamers and still follow the handler's cues.

Letting the horse check things out before moving through.


  THE WATER BOX

Once the horse will respond to the handler and maintain his position over the simpler obstacles, we add more dimension to the problems.

The "water box" is a wooden box filled with water which quickly gets muddy. It contains sand so that the footing remains decent, but it is puzzling to the horse. Most horses will try to avoid the box by pulling away or pushing into the handler, especially if he is pressured too much.

The are here is to keep the horse and trying focused without escalating the tempo. The horse's nature compels him to approach and retreat from strange objects until he is more sure of it. It's not so important that the horse immediately proceed through the water box as it is for the horse to check it out, keep coming back to it and focus on it until he goes through.

The objective is to walk through the box, not run through or jump over it, and learn that the handler won't ask him to do anything he can't do.

The horse won't cross with his head up and shoulder into the handler
Now he's focused on his feet and his handler.


  THE BLOWING TARP

Most horses don't like walking on plastic tarps. Tarps that ripple and billow in the desert wind are even more challenging.

The rate at which this obstacle is attempted can't be so slow that the horse has a chance to worry over it, but it can't be so fast that the horse doesn't process what's going on and panics when the tarp moves.

The horse may need to approach and retreat from this obstacle until he starts to understand it. If the wind is moving it a lot, the handler may have to walk on the tarp to control the amount of billowing and so that the horse can perceive that the tarp can be walked across.

Once the horse takes the tarp at a sensible pace, it is desirable for him to stand on it quietly on a loose lead.

A tentative walk over the moving ripples
Standing quietly


  IN CONCLUSION


Obstacles should be processed on the ground, in hand, and the horse secure with them before attempting them from the saddle. Even fairly well broke horses may have difficulty processing something completely new with the stress, weight and movement of someone in the saddle.

By the end of this exercise, the horses were handling the various obstacles without worrying or scrambling even though they were led by a number of different handlers, large and small alike.

Making it look easy!

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