05.20.07

Montana Draft Horse and Mule Association

Posted in Ian Chronicles, Daily Journal at 9:17 am by Kerri

Click on photos to see larger version

Yesterday I went to the Montana Draft Horse and Mule Association Spring Gathering. It was TOO MUCH FUN! I wanted Ian to be around all those draft horses, because he was very offended by a horse with chain end traces and a forecart last year. The event was held at Donna Reimer’s Pioneer Mule Ranch in Roy, MT.

The first event was the log pull, so I took Ian over to watch. The weather was cool, damp and windy, so several of the horses were a bit frisky. At first Ian thought those horses making so much noise were going to eat him, but he only spun around to keep an eye on them. I even put him in a position where the team and the log would circle us. (They had metal eveners that made lots of noise too.) When they started the log pull, I positioned him as near to the start/finish as I could, without being in the way. This way they would be coming towards us making all that noise and snapping their knees. After several runs, he actually started to get bored, so I went and harnessed him up. We did the log pull twice. Ian did awesome, me, not so good. We killed several cones, but had a great time.

Lunch was a wonderful spread of meats and cheeses plus many salads and desserts. I was going to stick strictly to my diet, but someone brought rhubarb pie - yum! I also had to have one tiny piece of Scott’s Famous Brownies. Kelli and Russ got there right about the time that lunch was winding down.

After lunch was the obstacle course. We got to watch the teams go and help with the judging for a while, and then we went. Kelli was my passenger, with Shelby. The first obstacle was a cone encircled by a chalk line. The requirement was to circle the cone to the right, always keeping your right hind wheel within the chalk line. It was a test of how well your team/horse comes over and a test of the drivers skill. Ian did really well, except that he hadn’t had to go a full circle in a long time, and he thought that was a bit excessive. The second obstacle was a reclining lawn chair, with a dead body in it. The dead body was created by Scott Koetting by stuffing and old pair of overalls with sleeping bags and towels, with rubber boots for the feet and a balaclava for the head. You had to pull your horse or team into a circle marked with chalk near the dead body and stay there while your passenger got out and loaded the body into the carriage. Ian thought the body was rather scary, but still listened to me enough that I could get him in the circle. We got the body and moved on.

The next obstacle was the dock, where you need to back your carriage into a partially constructed run-in shed, next to a table. The idea was to leave the dead body on the slab (the table). There were used-car flags flapping on the top edge of the shed. We haven’t really got the hang of backing with the 4 wheel carriage yet. There was lots of pilot error, and Ian got frustrated with all the turn, back, whoa, turn, etc. Several times he just kept backing once he got started. We gave up without really finishing that obstacle.

Next was the creek crossing. Ian juked left then right, then decided he’d have to do it, and tip-toed into the water. I was so happy with him. He’d been across that creek last year, but it was quite a fight.
Next we wound along on the edge of a hay field to the county road. There is an actual bridge on the county road, but they used cones to make it narrower. We trotted right across. Ian has been across that bridge before but the cones made it more scary. You could feel him slow down and raise his head to appraise the situation, and then he decided it was ok, and put his head down and accelerated. Good boy! The last obstacle was 3 cones that you had to slalom through, making sure that your inside wheels went through the small circles of chalk. This was really easy for us, because it was set up for teams pulling a large wagon.
We were so happy when we were done, that we did the course again, backwards. They’d picked up all the cones, but we still had fun.

I was really happy with Ian. He came a long way yesterday. When we were hooking up for the obstacle course, a team came trotting by not 20 feet away, with chains and stuff clanking, and the wagon making odd booming noises. He hardly turned an ear.

I thought we were done for the day, so I unhooked and unharnessed Ian, and gave him his goody. I was done before I realized that everyone was getting ready to go out on a pleasure drive. I thought Ian had done very well for me, and I didn’t want to make him do more that day. So, Kelli, Russ and I went to get supper. When we got back it was just starting to rain, and the crew was back from the pleasure drive, so I loaded Ian up and went home.

It was a great day!

You can see more photos at Spring Gathering.

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