Halter Obstacle - Soooo evil! lol!

[Magic Marker Minis]

They put a bale of hay at the obstacle where the horse has to stand on the platform... Evil, evil, evil! I can see where we're going to have to do some work!!!! lol!

I love seeing all the obstacles... Gives me good ideas of where and what to work on with my horses. Some are very clever!

(Still think they need to put up a stairs obstacle... Our horses would be pros!)

Kari

 

[FurstPlaceMiniatures]

At my last show we had to "sack out" with a garbage bag. It was amazing how few horses could do it! Mines been put through the ringer with stuff like that thankfully, but yes, that bale of hay would've been SO evil!

 

[madmax]

Some eons ago when I showed obstacle, there was quite a friendly competition among area club members, we all wanted to end up with the most points for the year, and there were some members that were super at it. The decorations for the event included 32" sized painted horse cutouts around the arena proper, they were well done and looked realistic. Well you guessed it, most of the entries thought it was a live horse, and of course there one was right at the ground tie obstacle. Lots of bug eyed and stretched necks and nickering, some did move. Did not seem fair! Ha! Well I was lucky my 2 guys stayed put, but they were certainly fooled and talking to that 'horse'! Also there were 3 set ups (3 obstacles) in a row, one for each judge! It was really too much.

Was it deliberate, or just coincidence that cutout was placed just so? Who knows, but we were all laughing because the horses were so funny looking at it. . At the nationals hay bale thing, I have a sneaking suspicion that it was placed near the beginning to weed out entries early because there were so many, of course being on an elevated platform was hard also. I felt sorry for so many of the kids working so hard to get to nationals and could not finish the class. But when you are at nationals it is not easy to predict everything, and it is supposed to be hard.

At one of the AMHA nationals I attended, the jumping class had what I thought was an unfair jump - The cross bars were painted the color of the arena footing and hard to tell it was a jump until right upon it. There were no flowers or anything else on it.

I only watched a little bit of the jumping this time, did they have jump-offs and raised the bars higher like they used to?

 

[Magic Marker Minis]

They had timed jump offs... did not raise the bar.

eta: Yes, I remember, they did raise the bar on one or two of the jumps.

 

[targetsmom]

Nationals and Worlds are supposed to be hard!! I do feel sorry for the ones who got DQd so early in the pattern, but I understand why they did it. I think I have also seen a ground tie where you had to carry a bucket of grain around the horse. The point is that you need to be prepared for anything and train your horse to respect and trust you and do what you ask no matter what.

Check the rules, as I think "stairs" are not allowed.

 

[Magic Marker Minis]

stairs = joke... I expect it would be too dangerous for most of them...

The ones in the show ring seem to be a lot 'hotter' than ours. They bounce and jig like a kite on a string... I don't know if we'll make it in the show ring as I won't allow that kind of behavior in my herd... I've seen some halter horses kick at their handlers... That's a deal breaker for me... I'd be backing that horse up across the arena... The same with the rearing... When one of my horses does that, they get backed up - they usually only do it once because I act like I'm going to eat them! lol!

 

[bevann]

Toughest thing I ever saw in Halter obstacle was a crate with several chickens or geese in it near a platform to be walked over.Eliminated many entries.Another thing would be a pig.Many horses large and small do not like the smell of pigs.Nationals and even area/regional should be tough-in obstacle and jumping.Congrats to all who made it through the patterns even if you didn't get top 10.

 

[Performancemini]

Our county fair holds a point system/timed obstacle course for the minis thru Drafts (sizes are separated). They had the chicken one year. Then the other year they had the pigs. Hardly anyone had gotten past the pigs without at least knocking over the side rail (pigs on one side in a pen and a side rail that was actually a jump standards and two rails to make a fence). My husband made it through with his team (these a teams doing it). He figured out that the wind was blowing across the pigs to the one end of the entrance of the obstacle and that everyone SO FAR had approached so the wind was toward them. You could take the obstacle from either direction-so-he took it the other way. By the time the minis realized they were having to pass something strange-smelly they were almost through LOL! So they kept going!

 

[HGFarm]

Great strategy performancemini!!

 

[targetsmom]

I have another example of using strategy to help you in a trail class, but with chickens! This obstacle also could be done in either direction - clockwise or counterclockwise. Everyone else walked counter clockwise so the handler was between the mini and the chickens. You can see that I did it the "hard" way, and we won the class. (Ruby did great on the other obstacles too).

Another tip and why that worked for us. A wounded pigeon landed on our farm not too long before the show and we made sure ALL the minis got a chance to be led by it. So at least I knew Ruby would have no trouble with a pigeon. We also make use of flooded driveways, used Christmas trees, and just plain junk!

 

[MiniNHF]

It was amazing to watch how many horses wouldnt stand on that platform and it definitely did weed out a lot of people in the youth and adult. But you could have a horse that does it perfectly at home and get into a show situation which is 100% different and just blow it.

 

[Flying minis]

It was amazing to watch how many horses wouldnt stand on that platform and it definitely did weed out a lot of people in the youth and adult. But you could have a horse that does it perfectly at home and get into a show situation which is 100% different and just blow it.

You are right on that! My two "stand-bys" - the ones who ALWAYS come through for me, blew it in Amateur - one moved, one stepped off. AND one of them did it again in Open, even though we'd worked on it all week! It was my newer little mare who isn't very experienced and always "misses" an obstacle or two who decided she was the star in the Open, stood like a rock on the platform, and ended up sixth in a big under class. . . .you just never know lol

 

[dreaminmini]

It was a good course. Evil yes. LOL But it has to be. I sure enjoyed watching!!

Congratulations Flying Minis for placing 6th!!! That is awesome and the competition was tight. For the ones that didn't DQ, they were all good.

 

[MiniNHF]

for how huge the classes were congrats on that win!

You are right on that! My two "stand-bys" - the ones who ALWAYS come through for me, blew it in Amateur - one moved, one stepped off. AND one of them did it again in Open, even though we'd worked on it all week! It was my newer little mare who isn't very experienced and always "misses" an obstacle or two who decided she was the star in the Open, stood like a rock on the platform, and ended up sixth in a big under class. . . .you just never know lol