Major Howze Training

One of the events at the National Cavalry Competition is the Major Howze event. It is a cavalry mobility test in which the team completes a seven mile course at a trot and engages a number of saber targets at the end. The event is named after Major Howze who led a surprise cavalry attack on Poncho Villa in Mexico in 1916. The standard trot speed for the cavarly was about six miles per hour but Howze led his attack force at slightly better than seven miles per hour during the last three hours of his night ride into Mexico. The event scores each team on their speed, quietness, and ability to maintain formation. They are also scored on the number of targets they hit at the end. The most important part of preparing for the event is conditioning the horses for an hour-long trot. Fortunately, the regular training schedule of a mounted ceremonial unit takes care of most of the conditioning. We have practiced this event a couple of times on courses of between four and five miles and the horses have had no trouble with it. Today, we practice on a 4.9 mile course which the team finished in 34 minutes. That is a pretty good trot pace of 8.65 miles per hour. At the end the troopers engaged the enemy "village" and took out five of eight targets. The photos below show some of the action.

The enemy "vilage"


One of the villagers talking smack


The cavalrymen approaching the village


The troopers forming their attack


The attack


The body count