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Need Obstacle Ideas

6K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  MHFoundation Quarters 
#1 ·
I am looking for obstacle ideas for a few workshops I am going to setup in the next 2 months.

I am looking for "out of the box" ideas. I have tarps, ground poles, mailbox, gates, hanging stuff, noise makers, raincoats, dragging items etc...

Has anyone come up with any unique ideas? Can be while mounted or unmounted.

Thank You!
 
#2 ·
Sounds like you have all the stuff you need for a good trail course.

With your ground poles you could make a box they have to do a 360 in, an "l" to back thru, a sidepass, back a figure 8 around 2 cones, etc.

Out of the box ideas - last year at Halloween we played "mummify your instructor" I saved half full rolls of toilet paper and held one end and let the girls ride around me in a circle and try to turn me into a mummy. It was a great body control exercise for both rider and horse, plus there were lots of giggles at my expense :)

Suitcase races - Fill a suitcase with funny out of style clothing, have them ground tie their horse, change into a new "outfit" and re-mount.

Roping a fake cow - bale of hay with a practice steer roping head. (Even my english riders tried it and had a ball!)

We have played "polo" with pool noodles and a yoga ball....for a course it could be something like you have to get it from cone a thru the goal cone b and c.

Ride a buck - let them run the course a second time bareback with a dollar bill under their seat - my students always ask to play this one because if they can do it they get to keep my dollar.

Hope you all have a good time!
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#3 ·
We have done a few trail trials and have done some interesting stuff. Here are a few:
The large blow up lawn decorations
Mini horses, goats, chickens, cows by an obstacle (pole to go over, etc)
Pin the tail on the donkey
Fill up big squirt guns from a bucket on a barrel, shoot a target, and replace the gun into the barrel
Carry a flag from one place to another
Large round bails with fake deer, etc coming out from behind them....
metal trash can-to recycle objects....pick up can while mounted and throw in the trash can
Sidepass over a log
Geese floating in our creek

Hope those help-have fun!
 
#4 ·
not sure if all of these count, but these are just what we use at out desensitization clinics (well..what we did use previous years, not doing it this year).
-took a 12' 2x4 and set it across about 12' up, depending on the horses you'll have coming through. We hung pieces of cut tarp from it to make a..movable wall I guess you could call it. We have the edges ducttaped so there's no chance of anyone getting cuts from the edges ofthe tarp.
-we set up 4 poles (same as in poles event, but it doesnt really matter what you use. We tied/taped pool noodles to it about horse shoulder and knee height. I'd be careful with putting them too solid in the middle (like leave a few inches space in between the two that would touch), because we had our retired steeplechaser jump over it from a standstill and his rider wasn't very..happy about that. D:
-we had a little bridge built out of wood that we used. Only one horse from the clinic wantedto refuse it. The little 8 month old colt went over perfectly.
-we had the mailbox, tarp, bag of cans, dragged the bag of cans, etc.
-the other day we also put up some long 2x4s against the wall slanted and put a piece of plywood across te opening in the middle of it so that the horse wouldn't try to spin and dash outthe side..which I'm sure the horse we were using it for would've D:

But yeah..this is what we've done and it's worked wonders for our trail horses.:)
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#6 ·
Franknbeans - I'm going to borrow your lawn inflatables for desensitizing with my own greenies! Great idea!

Also giggled when I saw the fake deer thing...last year when my hubby was getting his bow sighted in for deer season I told him I wanted to try...he was in my outdoor on the end where I wasn't riding - I outdid him ON my horse teehee :) (he gave me so much grief and he still didn't get me out to freeze my rear off in a tree stand lol)
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