Spills and Thrills
As promised I have some videos to share from our competition this past weekend. So here you go!
The crying hyena in the background is actually my parents australian shepherd/lab mix who is DYING to herd all of the ponies together.
You can’t quite tell from these videos, but both my mom and I are riding Blitz and Boomer with our clickers. After each race, as long as our ponies didn’t buck or do anything unrequested, then they received a click and a reward after the race. It has added benefits in that the horses are right there to put on the brakes after they cross the line (which is helpful if there is a missed handoff that has to be grabbed quickly). It also helps in getting the horse to move quicker through the race. Our ponies know that usually at the end of the race they will be getting a reward – so in their minds the faster they go the sooner they will get to that reward.
I forgot to mention yesterday, that my mom actually took a spill off of Blitz during our first session on Saturday. It was mostly an accident, but Blitz began swerving as he was approaching the finish line for a handoff to me – and in doing so he tripped and fell to his knees. My mom naturally went flying and landed on her back. She ended up being fine – and I grabbed the handoff from her and ended up wining the race anyway. I guess it was inevitable – after this time last year Blitz had bucked me off during the first race.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about how my little Dachshund survived his first camping trip!
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