Gun Training

I was a little concerned about practice tonight because the footing was so hard in the arena. The people who maintain the arena couldn't drag it because their tractor is broken. It has rained a lot lately (we were rained out last week) and the normally soft footing turned to concrete. I advised the riders not to fall off because it would surely result in a broken bone. Everybody toned it down and kept their horses at nothing faster than a canter.

We had six riders so I asked three to remain dismounted to replace balloons while the rest of us rode. I sent all the "learning" horses through first as they would be using lower caliber weapons. If these horses were to hear the .45s going off, I feared they'd be reluctant to take the course afterwards.

I took the Wonder Horse through with the .22 the first time but decided to upgrade to the .45 with short loads to get him used to the smoke and flame. He had a real problem with me shooting off his left shoulder. When I realized this problem, I switched my training focus to keeping Apache straight on the course instead of him crabbing to prevent me from shooting to his left. We worked it out and managed to ride through straight most of the time. Apache doesn't like the guns, but he will do what he has to. It just isn't very pretty.

Duke and Journey went through the course a few times with lower caliber weapons. Duke is years away from being ready for a pistol competition, but Journey is making a little progress. Journey was once accidentally shot by his own rider during a competition about four years ago and has been a little reluctant to go through an obstacle course involving both balloons and guns ever since.

The other horses, Charlie, Regent, and Monte, all did fine on the pistol course. Charlie is rough, but gets the job done. Regent is smoother, but still a little hyper. Monte is about as good as you will get. None of them particularly like the weapons fire (judging from the rolling eyes and flaring nostrils), but better able to handle their fear than the other horses.

Gun training now gives way to saber training, which hopefully will be less eventful. Most of the horses seem to be pretty used to the obstacle courses now, so hopefully we can get some decent training in. Saber work requires more skill from the rider than the other events, so we will focus on making challenging targets for them.