Mounted Police Officer Lillian Moore hosted by Joe London Training. We headed over to Culpeper, Virginia on Friday evening after work. What should have been a 2 hr drive turned into a painstaking 3hr crawl due to continuous drizzle and very heavy fog driving on tiny 2 lane roads over unknown mountains. Upon arrival (according to the GPS) we were at the end of a drive facing a home with some parked cars, a school bus, and a horse trailer. Unfortunately we were expecting a large training stable....
A quick call to Sue had us turning around (to the amusement of the unsuspecting homeowners watching a horse trailer perform a 5-point turn-around, in the rain, in their personal driveway) and heading back up the road to where the wonderful stable hand now had the lights on and was waiting to help us unload. We quickly unloaded Poptart to a luxurious fully bedded stall already prepared with a fresh pile of fluffy hay and clean water. What service! I could have quickly gotten used to this Central Virginian lifestyle! We then headed to dinner in Culpeper hoping to make it to a restaurant before they all closed, and luckily Ruby Tuesday's was still open.
The day of the clinic dawned with more heavy fog and drizzle. We made our way to Joe's brand new indoor arena where we started out learning about basic drill work including standing boot-to-boot in line, counting off, stepping out in two's, and riding in columns of both two and four. Poptart thought the indoor arena was quite nice, especially since he could share it with a nice herd of new friends. However, he thought squeezing in line and in columns between his new friends was a little too close for comfort. He practiced making his "PISSY POP" face to make sure those strange horses didn't come any closer, but by the end of the day he had many new best friends and was happy to be with them. 
The other very interesting portion of the morning session included how to defend yourself from an attack/molestation by a person. I thought this was very useful (or hopefully not useful!). If someone grabs you and tries to pull you off your horse then you basically disengage (or 1-rein stop) the hindquarters of the horse into them with some extra oomph. You do not turn the front of the horse towards them as they can just follow and keep pulling you off. However, if someone grabs your reins you turn the horse into them and then beat them with everything you've got! We practiced this several times and the horses seemed to get the hang of it-- some even wanted to chase after their 'attacker'.
After lunch we practiced with sensory stimuli. At first this included a large 6' play ball. Poptart was happy to gaze upon it from afar and had no problem staying behind all the other horses when they approached. We had two or three "pusher" horses who seemed to think the ball was the best invention they had ever seen. Lillian paired the less confident horses with a pusher and the less sure ones gained confidence as they followed the pusher and ball around the arena. By the next bathroom break Poptart was happy to sniff and touch the ball while being lead.
After bathroom break we were quietly informed to expect unexpected sensory stimuli and to be sure to have shorter reins, etc. Then we started with some drill work and everyone promptly forgot about anything unexpected. Until BANG!! Lillian had lit firecrackers! Surprisingly, all the horses handled it very well. Poptart just flinched in place, then proceeded to flinch with every horse snort, tack noise, etc for the next 1/2 hour! Next was colorful smoke bombs-- think of the smoke monster from the TV show 'Lost'. Poptart was never comfortable with the smoke bombs, but he kept his head and stayed rideable/handleable while we maneuvered around the arena and various smoke. He was a little keyed up fromr all the stimulus by the time we had the end of the clinic line up, where we went over what we learned, liked, etc., but he settled down after a few minutes. Thank you Lillian Moore and Joe London and Sue Fanelli for putting on this great clinic!Overall, I was very pleased with the learning and experience. I learned that even though some situations may scare Poptart, I can generally handle him (at least long enough to get past it or safely dismount). I am less worried about unexpected gun shots in the woods and I plan on leaving very quickly should I see a large amount of smoke in the woods, LOL! I would love to practice all of this more, but I am very proud of Poptart once again :)
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