Stockmanship Clinic Day 2 (6/4/23)-by Anne

I had a much cooler night in the tent on a Saturday night. Where on Friday night I needed barley a sheet with the fan blowing, on Saturday night I needed my sleeping bag and considered wearing my hat. On Sunday I awoke to light rain. I decided to pack up what I could to save me time later. To keep what I could dry, I put my camping towel over everything. Adorning my rain coat and winter hat, i made my way to the porta potty and then went to the barn to feed Takota his breakfast. While Takota was eating I went upstairs to the viewing room to enjoy some coffee, oatmeal with bluberries, and a bluberry muffin. I make a second cup of coffee(as I still needed to wake up more) and then connected to the wifi so I could read Rob's latest blog. I got a little teary eyed as I thought of how far away he is. After breakfast, I headed downstairs to put Takota out in the paddock so I could clean his stall. At 9 am we all meet up in the indoor arena to have our morning chat. We decide that it would be a good idea to do some tying practice, so we each tie our horses to designated spots around the arena. While we chat and do a simulation, the horses rested quietly along the rail. our morning simulation consisted of one person being the calf and one the human. As the calf moved down the rail it was the humans job to pretend they where on their horse and follow every move the calf made. It ran, it stopped, it turned the other way, it turned back, it stopped. It got us all warmed up, though I think our horses thought we were nuts.

After the simulations, we mounted up and practiced our yields from the previous day. For our first exercize, we split up in pairs. One rider took the center of a circle and the other circled around the perimeter of the circle. It was the center riders job to keep their horse facing the other rider by yielding their horses forehand back and forth as if the other rider was a calf. At the walk it was easy, but if they trotted or cantered, or swtiched directions it was quite a challenge.

Now it was time agian to play witht he calves. I was lucky enough to be asked to open the gate and go into the cow pen and ask the calves to enter the arena. What fun. I felt like a real cowgirl. With help from the other riders, we moved the calves to the center of the arena and took our places around them in a rodeer. At first, we each took turns just walking straight through the cattle. We then practiced separating one calf out and getting it to stand still. New for today, was separating the calf out, getting it to stand still, and then moving our horses hind quarters towards the calf to encouage it to move forward again.

Our next big challenge for the day was to see if we could encourage a calf to stand inside a hula hoop set in the center of the arena. The herd was situated in the corner of the arena and one calf was separated out. When it came to my turn , my partner was taking a break, so I had to attemp this one on my own. A new calf was chosen and Takota and I went to work. I slowly moved the calf closer to the hoop, but it wasn't sure and would get close and then go around it instead of in it. I was able to practice my new found skills as it took probably 6 tries before the calf realized that the rest place was in the hoop. Takota was a champ and as I was doing this I felt him realize what the goal was and he started to really follow and move the calf. so cool. After my triumph, we all took a well deserved break for lunch in the farm house.

After lunch we were all ready to continue the fun, though we all were starting to feel our tired muscles from a busy weekend of riding. Our next challenge was a game of tick tack toe. We split into teams of 4 riders and it was our job to get a calf in the square we wanted. The calf had to stand for ten seconds for it to count. We paused and moved forward and blocked the calf from going back to the herd. Success. It stayed in for ten seconds. A point for the X's. We took turns. When it was the X's turn again we had to get the calf in a box so that the O's were blocked. Our calf had other ideas and stopped in a different square. Oh well.... the O's took their turn and got three in a row and won the game.

We took a 15 minute break, during which Sandy our Clinician set up a whole course of obstacles. After our break our last challenge was to see if we(in our teams of 4) could maneuver our calf through a series of obstacles. There was a bridge, tarp, black culvert to jump, a pole hallway and even a noodle car wash. Two of the riders would postion themselves at an angle to the obstacle to create a funnel so the other two riders could move the calf into it, and hopefully over the obstaacle. We were all laughing as we tried our best with some success and failure. We would all cheer when a calf jumped over the culvert or trotted over the tarp. Great fun was had by all. We were all exhausted, but so happy at how well our horses had stepped up to the challenges. The calves were put away and we all said our goodbyes and thank you's for a great weekend.