Ridecamp: [RC] Bombproofing clinic

Took my gelding on Saturday to a bombproofing clinic run by two mounted cops
from the Washington D.C. Park Police.  Verrrry interesting.

One of the first things they had us do was to move around the arena with the
horses very close together.  Told us we should be almost touching stirrups
when side by side, and we were to leave very little space in between one
horse's rump and another's nose.  (Couldn't help remembering the discussion
here on Ridecamp about leaving a safe space between horses.)  The point
being to desensitize our horses to close contact with one another.

We left a bit more space when taking them over mattresses, past road flares,
through paths of plastic bottles, a curtain of styrofoam noodles, and a
gauntlet of waving mylar balloons, etc., but we sure were close together
when milling around the smoke bombs, gradually getting each of our horses
closer to the source.

I did notice that we left a bit of space between the horses while the
gunfire was going off.  No problem when the gun was fired form the opposite
end of the arena, but my guy got a *bit* more reactive when the cop firing
the gun moved closer.  Oooh, that was fun.

Cindy



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
 Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=