Eeyore's Scary Day

Eeyore is a gray mare . . . a solidly built QH mare with excellent bloodlines . . . but her brain is more of an Arabian brain, I think . . . She is VERY "looky," and not very brave at first.  She WANTS to be courageous, but hasn't figured out that tarps, white rocks, bleached logs, plastic bags, and charging mules won't hurt her.
Friend, Rick, didn't get a photo of her perched in the cedar tree, but he did get a few pics of her scoping out the tarp curtain.  He also got a pic of her trotting poles in the arena. 

Eeyore checking out the curtain (we did this several times and she wasn't always this steady)

In this photo, you can see that she's still afraid that the curtain is going to get her from behind.

We had some raised caveletti in the woods, but practiced these in the arena as a warm-up.

As we continue to introduce more horses to the obstacles, we'll try to get more photos.  I think, after the rain we've had today, I will have to build a suspension bridge over the low spot on the groomed trail . . . The Railroad ties that I had positioned there to make a bridge are all floating . . . so it looks more like a log jam than a bridge.

If you go to the http://www.actha.us/ site, you will be able to view many of the different obstacles and listen to the judges evaluating the horses and riders.  If you want a bit of a challenge for you and your horse, go ahead and build some obstacles or find some that you can use (a mailbox, landscape timbers outlining an "L" shape for backing through; cones for weaving; arena or round pen gate for opening and closing) and amaze both your horse and yourself as you meet the challenges and learn more about yourself and your amazing horse.