Saturday, March 22, 2014

Competitive Trail Ride Obstacle Training

Sorry once again, no pictures!  I realized something the other day... I haven't done any training on the obstacles in CTR and Chrome is almost five, which is the age you can start competing.  I don't have the money to compete right now, but I don't want him to not be trained when I do have the money so I need to get started on that now.  Besides you spend more time training for a sport than actually competing and the training is the fun part, so what am I waiting for?

So what I've decided I'm going to do is write down all of the obstacles listed on the ACTHA website here https://www.actha.us/obstacles and pick one each week to work on.  I don't want to be in a hurry or push him too hard so obviously if a week isn't enough time I will extend it.  Some of them we can already do so there's no reason to spend more than a week working on them.  Even if he already knows one I want to work on variables since each competition can vary on each obstacle.

So here is the list of obstacles (you can see descriptions on the website):

360 Degree Turn/Spin
Animal on the Run
Back
Down Bank
Up Bank
Barrel Board Pinwheel
Bridge
Campsite
Canter
Close Encounters
Curbside
Dismount
Don't feed the bears!
Don't spray me!
Downhill
Drag
Frog in Pond
Gate
Hat Pick Up
Jump
L-Back
Labyrinth
Mailbox
Mount
Noise Control
Perfect Picture
Poles
Recycle
Sidepass
Raincoat
Spanish Pole
Spider Web
Squirt
Stop
Straight Arrow
Tarp
Trot Transitions
Trot Weave
Turn on Forehand
Turn on Haunches
Uphill
Vine Simulator
Wagon Wheel
Water Obstacle
Wildlife Box

Some of these are going to be tough like the up and down banks because I don't have access to any, but I'll figure it out.  I'm going to choose one for this week, but I'm all for you guys chiming in with whichever one I should work on next week!  I'm thinking for this week I want to work on Frog in Pond since I already have a wading pool and it will be a fun way to celebrate turning our outside water back on after a long winter of hauling water from the well house hehe.  If you decide to chime in on our choices keep in mind right now I don't have any cavaletti poles!  I'll let you know when I have some available.

I'm going to tag these posts with CTR Obstacle Training, so you can always choose that tag in the labels in the sidebar if you want to review the posts as we make progress through them.  :D

8 comments:

  1. Never heard of this but sounds like fun, :)
    Yay for focused things to work on while riding - I know if i don't have something to focus on my rides get repititive and boring and neither the horses nor I find that fun

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  2. This is what I want to try with Trax. I think he would prefer it to reining exercises.

    Have you seen the videos of the place in Oregon for the extreme trail challenges? Super fun!

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  3. Yes being extremely bored during our rides around the yard is one of the things that made me decide to work on the obstacles. We need something to do before we both die of boredom LOL!!

    Cindy, I have seen some videos of the extreme trail thing. That is so cool!! I might have to go watch some again for inspiration hehe.

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  4. Also look for fun trail shows - we have several clubs through out the year hold these. They usually benefit a charity of some sort. Next weekend we are taking a couple of horses to one where for $15 bucks you can enter a trail and ranch riding class. It's a great way to practice, get out and have fun with Chrome, and build some experience! :)

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  5. That's a great idea! I'll have to look for some of those once we have learned some of the obstacles. Right now I don't think we could do enough of the obstacles to get halfway through lol. I'm going to have to teach him to neck rein too for some of them! I've been wanting to teach him to neck rein anyway, because I miss the versatility of having a horse know both. :D

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  6. when i did ctr, they made me back my horse into a puddle (mean!) and mount from the off side from the ground. the horse was 15.2 so i wasn't very graceful at that.

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  7. How fun, looking forward to your posts about the training. I have to do the same with Mia so it will be fun seeing your take on them.

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  8. Thanks guys! I'm so excited to be working on all of this stuff because it stops the boredom lol. Lytha I will definitely have to work on backing. Some days he does great and some days he acts like he has no clue how to back up lol! Appy I have to come get caught up on your blog too. I'm dying to see how Mia is doing. I wish I had more time to read. It's going to take me forever to get caught up on everyone's blogs lol.

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