Today was fun!!! I love that Danny is game for whatever.. Except for Sprinklers and Big Foot! ha ha.
We went to the Shakerag Hunter Trials and Obstacle Course today. We swung by and picked up the besties... Missy and Indy first. Dan was excited. When we got there they were starting the hunter classes but were just on the cross rails. So we decided to go ahead and do the obstacle course and hopefully we would finish in time to do the 2'6" hunter course.
So off we went! It was basically a trail ride with about 8-10 obstacles en route. The first one we encountered was the pinwheels and flags. They had a "alley" of pinwheels and some flags. Dan was totally fine and basically ignored them. I think we scored a 10. :) Indy was a little weirded out about them but I think he was just amped up since it was the beginning and the horses ahead of us had cantered off after they did that obstacle and so both boys were a little excited. We managed to walk to the next one though and then we caught up to them and had to wait. There was a cardboard box (that I guess had held the contents of the next obstacle) and Dan picked it up and was flinging it around. Ha ha. Whoops! Anyways, then it was our turn. This time we went first. It was a pit of plastic water bottles. Dan walked right through like it wasn't there. Like.. he really had no care in the world. Good boy. Indy was a little freaked out but followed Dan through and almost jumped into our laps! ha ha. We carried on. It was a nice hack through the woods to the next one.
We had to go through some lincoln logs set into a "ladder" more or less. The goal was to put a foot through each hole. Dan cheated a little. He didn't care about it but he's so long legged that he stepped over one of the "holes" instead of stepping in each one. Indy did okay with that one too. The next obstacle was fun too. We let Indy go first and he did great. They had two barrels set up and each had a bucket on it. There were plastic balls in the bucket and you had to take it from one barrel, pour it into the other bucket, and then bring your empty bucket back and set it back on the barrel. Both boys were super for that, although Dan tried to eat the balls out of the bucket! No goober!!! They aren't treats! In his defense, the last time we were there for the easter egg hunt.. they did have carrots in the buckets!
Another obstacle was around a blind curve. You just had to walk by. But about 2 feet into the woods on the blind curve they had set up a giant Bigfoot silhouette with another smaller one. And then I think there was a hay bale tarped up too. Dan went first and was all game until he caught sight of Bigfoot. He was like NOPE!!!! NOPE NOPE NOPE! Doh! He tried to backtrack and almost took out the jduges chairs. ha ha! Rather than risk injuring anyone... we just let Indy go first. Of course Indy didn't mind that at all and marched right on by like it was nothing. After that Dan followed closely behind him and was brave. Hee hee. Pretty sure we got a zero for that one!
The only other obstacle that Dan said nope to was the shower curtain. Of all things! He's done that before! They had a purple shower curtain cut into strips. It was hanging from a plastic pipe frame and it was breezy enough that the strips were blowing at us. Both boys were snorting and stopping. We were giggling and managed to get them to inch forward, alternating who went first. We finally got them close enough and then Dan was like "oh.. it's just a shower curtain" and grabbed one in his mouth and started pulling. NO DAN!! ha ha... You can't Eat it!!! I was able to pull it out of his mouth and then he walked right through it. Hee hee. Indy took much more convincing, even after seeing Dan go through, and she had to get off and lead him. But he did it.
Then we had a bit of a hold up at the next one. We managed to catch up to Abby and Glory and two other girls. One of them was on a hot spazzy thoroughbred who was basically bouncing the entire ride. We stayed behind them as he pinged around but when we got to the next obstacle.. there was a back up. We were all standing and talking and the thoroughbred was being wiggly, but not bad. Out of the blue, Dan sort of charged forward three or four steps and bit that horse on the butt and then Dan very quickly retreated. hee hee.. I was mortified and cracking up at the same time. It was so.... meditated!!!And he knew exactly what he was doing because he immediately retreated to safety. Hee hee. He was like "Excuse me sir... only *I* am allowed to shenanigan sir!". I apologized and the girl was fine. She was like "He deserved it". Well, not really... I mean, at that point, he was vibrating but minding his own business. Luckily Dan more just slobbered on him than actually bit him. Doh! Anyways... after that everyone was fine and we all were able to do the obstacle and move on to the next one. They ended up having to put a boot back on so they let us go ahead. Ha ha... Probably a wise move considering. But that obstacle was cool too. It was a hay net on a pulley. The hay had gotten rained on so it was pretty heavy but you had to walk up to it and grab the rope, then hold it and back your horse up, so the pulley lifted the hay up. Then you had to drop it back down. Dan was super with it, although he's not a fan of backing so we backed a step or two and then turned and walked away from it. Indy did good with that one too.
The next set was fun too. It was a bunch of black pipe stuck onto sticks in the ground...so a bunch of spider legs waving around. Dan just marched right through like "whatevs". Then we hacked around the the flamingos! It was an L shape path with groundpoles with plastic flamingos all around. You had to "Back the L". Which, despite Dan not liking backing lately, he did pretty darn well. He lost one foot over the pole but then corrected. And he didn't kill any flamingoes. Indy took one out. Hee hee...
The final obstacle was a mailbox, which... ha! We do that for real at home, so no sweat! But yep.. in addition to all that was a nice hack through Shakerags property. Dan enjoyed grabbing some of the hay from the hay fields. ha ha. oops. And we popped over a log or two on our way. We also came across the canoe again but we didn't jump it because it was too close to the obstacles and we didn't want to bother the other horses.
When we got back to the show area.. they had just set the jumps up to 3'. Dangit... I probably COULD have jumped him 3' but.. it was on grass and I just wasn't sure that was fair to him. Oh well. Luckily they only had one girl riding it and after they told me they would drop the fences for me and let me do my own class. Okay!! I'll happily donate another $15 to shakerag. I told them to set them at 2'3". And we warmed up over a cross rail and a vertical and then we did the hunter course. Inside to outside to outside to inside. He was brilliant! Well.. maybe not brilliant because.. he's not really impressed with 2'3" but he was a really good boy. He jumped everything and dealt with the terrain and was just a happy camper. Good boy!!! We won our class. ha ha... I took a photo with the ribbon but then gave it back. :) FUN DAY!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment