Here’s a photo of Bill and me practicing for the October 25th Get-Together. The general theme of the event is: there are so many things you can do with your horse AND have fun doing them.
The hula hoop tossing idea came from the Wind Rider obstacle course. One of the obstacles is a hula hoop placed on the ground and the rider has his horse put his front feet in the hoop then turn 360 degrees. The boys are quite good at this and we’re using that movement in a pas de trois. But, there has to be more that we can do with the hoops. One evening we brainstormed and came up with several configurations for tossing them. Of course, we were sitting in the house, not on the backs of the Lusitanos. The next day we took our ideas to Zelador and Zeloso. The boys threw themselves into the challenge. I think Zelador quite enjoyed my numerous dismounts to retrieve hoops that went astray. You’d think with Zelador’s ability to pick up and carry things that he’d help me, but no, not yet.
During the pas de trois Kye joins Z and Z. Kye is supposed to walk over the bridge in the arena. He did this hundreds of times BEFORE Bill and I painted it blue, green and yellow. The critter stopped DEAD at the edge. There was no way he was putting one of his precious hooves on that thing. Bill got off and helped Kye from the ground. Time passed, Kye relaxed and we are now able to keep this movement in the pas de trois.
Z and Z were watching this episode. You could almost hear them saying, “Wow! Colours! These are neat! Maybe the bridge is edible!” and “It would be so cool if a bell rang each time a hoof stepped on the bridge. Now THAT would be entertainment!”
Another component of the Get-Together is a demonstration of Working Equitation and Wind Rider. Both have a slalom course. We have five orange pylons for the horses to go around. Because the event is in October I found five large pumpkins to replace the pylons. Almost every horse found them intriguing. The Lusitanos found them fascinating. Zeloso has bitten off the top of each one. Zelador likes to roll them. I’ve learned that the pumpkins will have to be removed from the arena floor and placed far, far away if we’re going to have any sort of a liberty performance that does not include playing with pumpkins.
This weekend everyone in the Get-Together will do a run-through in front of a small audience. Now THAT will be interesting…
