Having options for things to do with the horses is a challenge in the wintertime, especially with COVID related restrictions. One of the great locations near us that hosts the Working Equitation shows Bridgett takes part in hosts the National Mountain Trail Championships each year.

Oregon Horse Center – Mountain Trail Course 2020

The Oregon Horse Center (OHC) main arena is huge – it is 110 x 265 feet, and they transform it into a challenge course of natural obstacles. These are manmade but the crew does an amazing job making them as realistic and natural as possible. The obstacles have a variety of difficulty levels to challenge both the horse and rider.

Amante going up the trail to the bridge

Once the competition is completed, they leave the arena set-up for a several weeks to allow people the opportunity to experience it. I am a forever novice on riding, and it is not a discipline Bridgett is familiar with, but Bridgett decided it might be a good training opportunity for Amante and we would bring Sky along as well. It is a $15.00 haul in fee and with COVID a limited number of riders can be on the course.

Sky looking pretty and attentive – he knows something is up and is excited about it

We lead them through the obstacles and they both really enjoyed it. Sky did not balk at anything put in front of him, except for the “hide on a rope” challenge. The idea is to ride up next to a pole where a cow hide is tethered to a rope. The rider pulls the rope to raise the hide in the air and then lowers it.

What is this thing?

This caused Sky some alarm and by extension since the older horse reacted, Amante as well. Neither bolted but they did get bunched up ready to run.

It might kill me!

Amante did very well – water is not a challenge for him at all – Sky Did not want to get wet but reluctantly got in the pond.

That water is damn cold by the way!

We only had one challenge that Amante refused – ditches. There was a bridge over a ditch that created a bit of a tight space to navigate. Nope Nope Nope. Even when Sky went through with no issues it was still Nope.

Hanging out the bridge – Amante would NOT go under it though

It was a fun experience, and I am glad we went. Since Amante is not ridable at his age (and I have problems on level ground) we only lead them through

It will be interesting to see what they do next year, and we can ride Sky and Stanley (or even Rivian) through.

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Posted: December 31, 2020

Category: Exploration, Horses