I mentioned in the last post that we had the riders lead a horse while riding as a judging obstacle. We used a horse named Scooter as the horse to be lead. He was a safety horse this weekend. The safety riders ride behind each division of competitors. They carry first aid kits for minor injuries and they go looking for people if we realize that we’ve lost someone.
Our scenario for the obstacle was that we found this horse on loose on the trail. They were to lead him around the clearing to see if anyone claimed him and if not, bring him back to where they started. We were joking that poor Scooter was getting a complex because he kept not getting claimed. At the ride meeting that night I explained that although we had only the most advanced division do the test that it was a good skill for everyone to practice since this scenario happens in real life if a horse throws his rider and runs off.
The next day we were driving to a judging spot and saw a person over in a hay field walking. Before we had time to really determine if the person belonged to the ride we caught up with a safety rider flying down the field. A bit further on here came a few novice riders heading back the other direction leading Scooter. Apparently he is taking his new role as a teaching assistant very seriously and wanted to see if the novices knew how to lead him from horseback too. It turns out that his rider had dismounted to give him some electrolytes and Scooter took the opportunity to leave. He was outrunning his companion horse but stopped when he met up with a couple of horses.
