We are dedicating this month to pistol training which we have long neglected. Since we have some new horses that are not used to gunfire and some old horses that never got used to them, we decided to start slow and work on desensitizing them to a .22 starter pistol.
We put the horses into a column of twos with a bomb proof horse matched up with a spooky horse. First, the column trotted around me while I fired the pistol until we were sure that all the horses were okay. Then I gave the pistol to the rider at the front of the column and had them continue trotting in a circle. The rider fired four rounds from his horse and then passed the pistol to the next rider. Each rider fired at least four rounds off their horse. Some of the spooky horses reacted a little but nothing too severe. Cal, being completely new, had the most trouble, so we decided to not fire off him.
After everyone could fire off their horse without incident, we rode them through a couple of balloon targets. Sometimes horses that have no trouble with gunfire will react badly when the pistol is combined with a balloon target. We started out in a column of twos and then switched to single file. It worked pretty well and each horse was able to pass through the targets without spooking.
It was a pretty good workout for the horses as they were in a trot for about 40 minutes. They were getting sweaty but not lagging. However, a rain squall was coming so we had to terminate training and get back to the stables. Next week we will continue the bomb proof training accept we will introduce a louder pistol. So far so good.
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