Trail Course of the Month 8/19

Sorry, I took a little break, but I'm back with a very nice course by my friend Don Lehman.

I had the pleasure of being one of the judges at the AQHA Celebration & EMO Western States Championships in Las Vegas, NV in early July of this year.  This course really flew well.  It was challenging and able to get a large number of horses through in a timely manner.

This course started out with difficulty with a lope spoke in obstacle 1.  A very quick lead change was required at #2 and right into another challenging and different lope spoke in obstacle 3.

After all that loping the horses were required to drop down in gears to a jog and both clear poles and make sharp turns simultaneously.

Horses needed to use there fine motor skill finally in obstacles 5 and 6.

The final obstacles required jogging, stopping, backing and walk overs.  Horses had to slow down and exercise caution and carefulness after a lot of steady forward motion.

Obstacle 1; Lope Overs (RL)

Obstacle 3; Lope Overs (LL)

Obstacle 2; Change leads in Chute

Obstacle 4; Jog thru Serpentine over Poles to Gate

Obstacle 5; Open Gate (RH) Ride thru/over Poles, Close Gate

Obstacle 7; Jog from Bridge into Chute & Back thru Poles. Obstacle 8; Walk Out of Chute over Poles

Obstacle 6; Walk over Bridge