Rain or Shine
Ammo waits in the car while we ride
On Saturday Boomerang and Blitz attended the Pickering Hunt Pony Club Mounted Games Competition in Ludwigs Corner, PA. I entered the boys into the training division as I’ve decided to finish out this show season continuing to take it slow with the boys. Hopefully next Spring Boomerang will be ready to compete in the Masters division and Blitz will go on to ride in the Veteran (or Fossil) division with my mom. I’m sure we will inquire some separation issues (especially with Blitz) when the boys are no longer riding in the same division. Until then they’ll just trudge along together.
So Saturday ended up being a rainy and mucky day. But being rough and tumble mounted games players there is no amount of rain that would keep us from playing. We were the first division to ride, so of course we got the worst of the rain. Not to mention the ring was really flooded with puddles everywhere. Both ponies were a little weary of the big puddles so we opted to “click” them into it. During warmup we asked the boys to walk into the puddles. Each time a foot touched the puddle they got a click and rewarded. Within 5 minutes both ponies were trotting and cantering comfortably through the muck. Ahh the power of a click.
Cute pony butts
I was a bit bummed that it was raining because I had hoped to use this competition to ask Boomer for a bit more speed. But since the footing was not ideal I decided to not push him and have him fall. If he fell likely it would undo a lot of my training making him fearful to go faster. But despite the rain, Boomer put in a good effort, especially considering the week leading up to the competition I was only able to ride him once. My mom was convinced that my 6 year old would surely give me some bucks since he’d had a little time off. But he didn’t buck once. My Boomerang is growing up.
We placed pretty consistently second in most of the races as we had some tough competition against some much faster ponies. Although I’d like to add that the competition ponies might have been faster than us, but our boys were the best behaved. The fast ponies were obviously being pushed too fast, and most were having “freak outs” at the start as well as some uncontrollable meltdowns during the races. This is usually brought on when a young horse is pushed into racing and going fast without basic flat skills and experiences. Most of the time these young horses get an adrenaline rush when put into a racing situation and they have not learned how to control it (ever see young race horses at the start gate freak out?). So instead of dealing with the stress they feel they blow up, become uncontrollable, or some even shut off and refuse to move. It makes me sad when I see horses like this (and roughly 50% of mounted games ponies have this issue) because it could have easily been prevented had the horses been trained properly from the start.
A mounted games rider tries to control her pony
Too much emphasis is placed on speed in mounted games – although yes it is true you can’t win if your horse isn’t fast. But mounted games isn’t like horse racing, we don’t run a straight line at top speed. We stop and go, spin around, halt, reverse – basically maneuvers you would see a talented dressage horse doing. But lets face it, how many people that like to go fast do you see doing dressage? They are polar opposites. I may be the exception as I love dressage and mounted games, I trained my big guy Nitro up to Second Level Dressage. But the fact remains, that if you want your horse to be a controllable (and calm) mounted games pony then you need to do your flat work first. Not only that but I strongly believe that one of the BIGGEST skills that a mounted games pony can learn is how to deal with their adrenaline. The way I accomplished this with my boys is to take them to an open field and allow them to gallop up a hill as fast as they want to go (which is pretty darn fast) and when we reach the top I ask them to stop, stand, and wait. This is VERY hard for a horse to do. After exerting all that energy (and racing another horse on top of it) they have a huge amount of adrenaline that likely would cause them to rear, buck, spin, or run off if you asked them to stop in the middle of their race. But by using clicker training I have successfully taught my boys how to control this feeling. They now calmly stand after a good gallop. Not only that but they stand like statues on the start line and when the other horses have finished the race and we’re not done yet they don’t become anxious about being the last to the finish line.
A mounted games rider tries to play through her rearing horse
Anyway thats my rant for the day on uncontrollable horses. The same principles in mounted games goes for barrel racing or any type of speed sport.
So onto the competition…Boomer and Blitz ended up taking an overall finish of third place and I was very proud of how they behaved. Both ponies have improved in leaps and bounds from the beginning of this year. I can’t wait to see how much more they learn next year.
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Ludwigs Corner Horse Show Grounds
P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos from the show. We didn’t have anyone to take photos for us, not to mention it was raining.
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I don’t know a whole lot about mounted games, mostly just what I’ve been reading on your blog.
Do you compete individually, or in teams for each of the events? What are all the basic games? Is the scoring completely based on doing the set task in a certain amount of time?
Perhaps you could do a post some time on the basics of mounted games?
Mary H.
Good Idea….I just might have to do a post on mounted games basics.
And to answer some of your questions:
Mostly you compete in teams (teams of 2 or 5 depending on the competition) but you can also actually compete individually as well. Its usually determined by the competition.
Every game is different. We have several organization all with a slightly different set of rules but the same basic games. Many are trying to unify the sport with one rulebook. http://www.mountedgames.org is a great resource with a rulebook.
Scoring is based on which team has their last rider cross the finish line first. A team can be eliminated if they don’t play a race properly though. And at the end of the competition points are added up and the highest scoring team wins.
And I love the suggestion for a post…I think I might do that! thanks!