Buffalo soldier

Good news - I did not suffer death by bison!

Actually, the cow clinic was a total blast. I would totally do it again and would recommend one to anyone - no matter what sport you ride. :)

I have video but it's being a pain to upload at the moment.

The day started out well - I was at the barn at the buttcrack of dawn, had Hampton fed, brushed and loaded on time to go pick up friends JJ and his human. I was quite proud of myself for being ON TIME.

I guess I got too cocky. Halfway over to JJ's home, my truck/trailer electric brake shut off. Just quit working. The trailer brakes won't work either. Crap. I had to pretty much drive at a crawl anyway because it was unbelievably foggy.

Then I had to stop and take a photo because the sunrise with the fog and windmills was STUNNING. My crappy phone pic does not even do it justice.

I arrive at JJ's home about 40 minutes late. We decide to just switch trucks since fixing my trailer brake issue isn't going to be solved in the next 5 minutes. We arrive at the clinic with 10 minutes to spare.

I yank Hamps off the trailer and throw his tack on. There are already about 15 other horses/riders in the arena waiting for us. We are of course the only ones in English tack, and I'm the only one who bothered to wear a helmet. I guess western riders are immune to head injuries?

Anyway everyone was super nice and Hampton got many comments on how tall he is. :) A cute little farm boy jumped at the chance to give me a leg up as there are no mounting blocks.

We started out with "dry work" as these cow folk call it. First, bending on a circle and then we added counter bend and their version of turning on the haunches. I didn't bother to bring a crop or spurs because I thought he would be plenty lit up at a new place with, you know, buffalo. But, uh, Hampton was about as lazy and behind my leg as he can get. Great. We also worked on stopping & backing during which I got some fantastic dressage halts out of Hampton. (No we really didn't get the quick stops like the cow horses could do, but nonetheless we had great transitions!)

Good cow pony.

We took a lunch break and then picked back up by working with the flag. And by flag, I mean a dummy/stuffed cow that hangs on a wire and you can mechanically move it back and forth.

Flag = TERRIFYING MONSTER OF DEATH.

Actually Hampton was really good about it. He didn't do anything besides snort A LOT at it. When it was our turn to work the flag, he was truly scared of it and wouldn't go near the thing without another horse first going up there as the sacrificial lamb. But by the end, Hamps was doing really well - following it back and forth (in passage and leg yield ... lol!). Some of the horses were not bothered by it and others were really freaked out.

Finally - the buffalo!

Here they are:



They are ugly, nasty little things don't you think? They also moo honk growl roar make some bizarre noise.

Hamps marched right up to the buffalo. He was fascinating by them and very curious. After he figured out that he could "move" them, he started to passage around with his neck arched. He was cracking me up! Meanwhile, I'm trying to actually do the task at hand. I sucked at it, but it was a blast! You really have to learn to 1) Read the buffalo 2) Control your horse and 3) Anticipate for both animals. Not easy!

Sorry all I have is cell-phone pics. :)

Here's a group who were team penning buffalo around:




The boys were all tired at the end of the day (It was almost a 3 hour trailer ride).
But so fun. :)

And I didn't pee my pants!

Tired cow poneh: