What the Heck is That?

This morning I attended/audited the Albuquerque Police Department Mounted Horse Unit’s basic sensory course.  This is the same course they use to begin the training for their horses.  It involves a lot of sensory obstacles that the horses have to go over or through.  There were 10 horse and rider participants and five auditors who received over three and a half hours of dedicated training for them and their horses.

There were three officers who were mounted and four officers on the ground that worked with the riders.  We auditors were invited into the arena and had a police officer who stayed with us the whole time to answer questions and give us more information as to what was going on.  The training was extremely well done.  The officers were all very friendly, approachable, knowledgeable, and willing to help in any way they could.  They were all excellent horse men and women.

Here are some pictures from today:

A couple of the officers relaxing before the event started – note the Yo-yo.

Introduction – the first test was to see if all the horses could stand quietly for a period of time and they all passed. 

Going over a tarp – this little horse had real trouble with this, but eventually got it and did pretty well the rest of the morning.

Pushing through nerf rods with a floppy duck’s head on the right and a kite on the left.
 
Going over steps.

Walking over a teeter-totter – this was the hardest obstacle for many of the horses.

Walking over elevated poles.

Pushing through the jingle bell gate – a spring loaded rod with a jingle bell on it.

The final test was to ride by a fan blowing streamers out at the horses and past speakers that were blaring out various sounds – trains, jack-hammers, horses screaming, bands playing, etc.
Finally, I had to include this picture of Rudy – one of the most beautiful horses I have ever seen.

Here’s a video that gives an overview of the obstacles and how some of the horses did.