Bob's Surprise Run

We recently picked up a new horse for the Army named Bob. Bob is a former Cowboy Mounted Shooting horse that we picked up in Tombstone. He is a big boy. We weighed him last week and he came in just under 1,300 lbs. When you cinch him up you can see the fat wrinkles around the girth. He is also slow. You have to use your spurs to get him out of a walk and then you have to keep after him to maintain your gait. However, he is also very friendly and calm. Guns and other scary sounds and objects don't bother him and he is willing to do whatever you ask of him. Today, I rode him in a ceremony for the first time. He did very well standing in formation for an hour even though he was standing next to a horse he hadn't been introduced to yet. As we got closer to the portion of the ceremony where we perform our charge, I began to worry about how he would perform. I had this image in my mind of trying to spur a reluctant horse from a trot into a gallop in front of the post's senior leadership who were present for the ceremony. However, at the end of the ceremony and as we positioned ourselves for the charge I felt a sudden change in Bob. His head came up and I actually felt myself restraining him a little. Then the order to charge was hurled into the air and off we went. Bob surprised everyone by pounding up the field ahead of every other horse there. Even Regent, who had a bad start, couldn't catch him. Although Bob is not a blazing fast horse like Cochise or Apache, everyone, including me, was amazed at Bob's speed.

Late Night Jumping

We practiced jumping tonight with seven riders. It was a long night. I designed a jump course I called "circling the drain". It turned out to be an appropriate name as the horses were not cooperating. It may have been the shadows in the arena or something on the wind but they were spooking at stuff they normally don't have trouble with. We set up a number of tough obstacles including an in-and-out, oxer, water hazard, and of course, the dreaded blue barrels. Charlie and Regent were doing well until Regent began to have problems with the water hazard jump when we raised it to 30 inches. We're not sure why. He could jump it at 24 inches but not 30. Charlie was plowing through the course so fast I think he may have broken the sound barrier. The rest of the horses were experiencing varying degrees of success. We were seeing a lot of refusals and run outs on some of the obstacles. It is amazing to see a 1,200 lb animal come to a complete stop from a gallop within one millimeter of the jump pole. There will be several troopers walking with a hitch in the gait tomorrow.

Fort Bowie

We made our annual trip to the Fort Bowie National Historic Site last Saturday. We go once per year to commemorate the surrender of Geronimo and to honor the soldiers who were once buried there. It is kind of a big deal for us because we memorialize the unit that was credited with capturing Geronimo. We ride a portion of the old Butterfield Stage route through Apache Pass and stop at the cemetery in Siphon Canyon. The soldiers buried there were removed to the National Cemetery at San Francisco when the fort closed down in the 1890s. However, some civilians including some who were former soldiers are still buried there. We give a little presentation on the history of Fort Bowie and then read aloud the names of all the soldiers who were buried there. At the conclusion of the reading, we fire a salute to them. Afterwards, we ride on up the canyon to the old fort ruins and have a picnic. Apache Pass is a beautiful place and it is always a treat to ride through on horseback. We had a fairly large crowd by Fort Bowie standards this year. At least 20 people braved the mile and a half hike to the fort to see us. We answered lots of questions about the cavalry and posed for lots of photos. The visitors seemed to really enjoy our being there and we look forward to our next visit.

Trusting Your Horse

A few of us got together this morning to practice jumping with our horses. The horses are starting to get into it. Even Cody, who never met a jump he liked, was clearing 30 inch jumps. Apache and Regent, who tend to rush the jumps, were doing pretty well when we were letting them do their thing. The only way you can get safely over a jump of 2 feet or more is to trust your mount. That is you have suppress the fear that your horse will refuse the jump and send you flying over the obstacle by yourself. This requires a level of mutual trust that you won't see matched between any other combination of man and beast. If you trust your mount enough to commit to the jump and let your horse do his thing, you will sail effortlessly over the obstacle and leave you still in balance for the next jump. If you freeze up and get behind the saddle, you will strangle your horse, making him apprehensive of the next obstacle. Then you both lose the trust you need to succeed.

More Pistol Training

We set up a pistol course tonight and ran the boys through. Some horses are doing well and some not so well. We set one of the jumps at about 2 ft with two targets immediately after. We found it hard to clear a jump that high and still have enough balance and control to hit targets. Slower horses did better at this than faster horses. Clearing the low jumps and hitting targets was no problem. We also used tiny little balloons and short rounds (1/3rd load) which made it all much more challenging. I figure if we can hit tiny balloons with short rounds we will do okay in the competition with full size balloons and full loads.

Finding Horses and Losing My Keys

Debbie and I drove up to Safford today to check out a new prospect for purchase. The horse was an 8 year old Missouri Fox Trotter. We checked out his temperament which seemed pretty good. He was apparently used for packing and hunting in the mountains. He was not at all bothered by the cap gun or anything else that Debbie threw at him. He did keep a close eye on Debbie though as she moved around him. He wasn't shod very well and he has a touch of mange but otherwise a reasonably healthy specimen. When I got ready to load him up for the trip back to Fort Huachuca, I realized I had locked my keys inside the truck. Debbie wanted me to lock the cab because her purse was in there but I forgot to take the keys out. I fashioned a key-retrieval device out of some wire and a horse whip and used it to hook the keys through the crack I left in the window. I managed to get the keys all the way to the crack when the wire slipped and dropped the keys into the map pocket in the door. Fortunately, the stable owners knew someone with a device they could use to open the door. It wasn't a lot more sophisticated then my manufactured key-retriever but there's did the job. Anyway, we got the new horse back to the fort and we will see if he can pass an Army physical.

One Step Forward, Two Back

We tried to accomplish some more gun training with Journey, one of our horses with a gunfire phobia. We had progressed pretty well with him over the last week. We were able to shoot a .22 starter pistol off his back without any real trouble. He went through the saber course a couple nights ago while his rider fired the .22 and didn't seem to have any issues. Until today, that is. I had his rider take him through a barrel course with the .22 but also attached some balloons to the barrels. We had all kinds of problems then. For some reason Journey attached a different meaning to gunfire when coupled with balloons. I stopped what we were doing and moved to another area and asked his rider to ride him around for a while until Journey calmed down. I then attached balloons to the railing around the arena and had his rider continue moving about the training area. Journey was still having trouble with the balloons even though his rider no longer had the gun so we changed our tactics a little. I asked the rider to focus on getting Journey to listen to him even though he was afraid of the balloons. That is, whenever Journey began to show signs of fear, the rider would give him a different task to take his mind off of the balloon. When it became possible for Journey to pass the balloons without incident we added the gun back in. I began to fire the .22 again as Journey rode around the arena making sure not to pull the trigger when he was passing a balloon. As Journey began to disassociate the gunfire from the balloons, I gave the pistol to the rider and asked him to fire as he rode but not when he was passing a balloon. After a while Journey could complete the circuit around the arena without reacting to the gunfire or the balloons. We called it a day at this point but will work some more on overcoming this balloon problem.