Halloween Fun Show at Hyslop Horse Heaven

My friend and neighbor, Patty Hyslop, held a Halloween fun show at her ranch just two miles from home. A friend from church, Wendy Turner, had started coming out to ride with me. She rides Hoss while I ride DC, giving DC the confidence of having Hoss around for her early trail riding. Wendy has been having a wonderful time with Hoss, and we decided we'd participate in the fun show.

On that Saturday morning, Wendy arrived about 8am and we rode the horses the two miles or so to Patty's ranch. We hadn't had a great deal of warning, so we didn't have costumes. Wendy did bring along a little paint to put markings on Hoss to make him a Indian horse, so that was fun.

The first class was the costume class. Although we didn't really have costumes, we both rode in the class. DC was very well behaved. Hoss, not so much. DC pulled away from him and he got very upset. I spent a great deal of time half turned in the saddle to instruct Wendy while DC carried me handily around the arena. It was her first experience in an arena with a bunch of other horses, too. The only problem I had with her was when she got behind the mini. The precious little thing is smaller than our biggest dog, Ash. I think DC thought he *was* a dog and expected him, therefore, to get out of her way.

Neither Wendy nor I got anything in that class, but honestly, how could we have expected to?

The next riding class was the obstacle course. I took some time beforehand to lead DC through some of the obstacles, knowing she had never done anything like it. There was a PVC framework with "caution" tape hanging down from it we had to walk under, a barrel with a stuffed rat that had to be dropped into a bucket, a blue tarp to walk over, a broom which had to be spun around and placed back on the barrel without being dropped (difficult to explain), a mailbox with a skull in it, a pair of pylons to do a figure 8 through, a wooden bridge to cross, a small jump/step over with one of those blow-up Halloween things next to it, and a pole on the ground to do a side pass over with the pole between the horse's front and hind legs.

Once I had worked DC through some of the obstacles, I helped Wendy get Hoss through some of the obstacles I knew he was going to give her a hard time with.

We waited and watched several other riders go through the course. When we were down to the last few riders, I went in with DC.

I wasn't confident of riding her through the dangling tape or over the tarp, so I led her through the tape, did the rat in the bucket, led her over the tarp, and tried the broom on the ground. Despite not even being on the horse, I managed to dump the broom on the ground. Once we were past that obstacle, I mounted up.

DC did pretty well with the mailbox. By this time I've already stopped next to our mailbox at home and gotten the mail. This mailbox was at rider height, so DC was less sure of this one. However, she finally settled to a halt next to it and let me open it, get out the skull, and put it back. We then went through the figure 8 quite nicely. She wanted to go around the bridge rather than over it, but it only took a few corrections before she went ahead and crossed it properly. The jump I felt was too high for her to attempt with a rider, and we've never jumped anything, so I dismounted and hand jumped her over it. She didn't want to go past the Halloween blowy thing, but managed it okay. I then got back on and rode her to the pole on the ground. I expected no better than to get her to stop over the pole, but she did a pretty passable turn on the forehand once we were there. It was mostly because she really did not want to be over the pole, but I'll take it.

Wendy got Hoss through the obstacle course, but he did give her some fits about it. She's really a beginner rider at this point, so without some serious instruction she did very well, especially with a horse who'll try any evasion he can think of.

DC and I placed third in the obstacle course, pretty cool.

The last event was a carrot hunt. A large number of carrots had been hidden all over the property, including one "golden carrot" worth $20 to the person who found it. We were not allowed to put any carrots we found in saddle bags; they must be on our person. Wendy had made the fortuitous decision to wear cargo pants.

We rode together around the property. Wendy turned out to be exceptional at finding the carrots. Wendy does work that involves spotting desert tortoises, so she has a fantastic eye. The carrots were probably easier to find than the desert tortoises are! In the end, we didn't find the golden carrot, but Wendy found the most carrots and won the hunt.

At the end of the day, we collected our "winnings" and headed for home. Wendy got a great big plastic pumpkin full of candy; I got a basket of soaps. We crammed them both in the saddle bags on Hoss's saddle (sure glad I'd left it on there), along with our lead ropes, collected up the dogs and rode home. It was a great deal of fun and a wonderful day. Wendy was already talking about what we should do for costumes for next year.