2010 Defensive Horsemanship Clinic

Saturday, April 17th, dawned clear and calm. Great weather for our safety clinic considering the snow storms of some past clinics! Set up commenced at 6:50am with Rod Cline helping Janice until Brenda and Jim arrived. Then, the help started to pour in. It was a concentrated effort to get it all set up and ready by 9 am but we did it.

A BIG thanks to all that contributed. This includes the donuts and bagels that Rich Inman and Brenda and Swep Davis brought to the Registra-tion Desk (Brenda D also bought the great assortment of cream cheeses). Jan Elpel, Brenda Kessler and Catherine Nelson manned the registration desk (we had 66 registered participants and we gained 5 new members at the clinic). Also thanks to Charlie Smith, for artistically arranging the tack in the swap, and thanks to Dan Porter, Dan Marsh and Rich Inman in setting up our Display Horse, Beth Merrick for getting the coffee going (Henry Glenn brought some coffee from his secret stash) along with even more refreshments. The trailers with the demo horses & mules were set up, manure scoopers were assigned and we were ready to roll.

The morning sessions were: "Before You Leave Home", with Joe Turner and "Packing and Pack Strings", with Shane MaClaflin. They each did 2 presentations simultaneously and back to back. Lunch break was spent visiting with the clinicians, browsing through the Wes Trends’ traveling Tack Room, viewing the various displays, looking at all of the nice tack in the swap (we had 15 saddles and lots of varied equipment) and speaking with BCH members. After lunch, Lisa Jacobsen showed us her First Aid trail kits, Gallatin Valley Weed District told us about all of the good information and help available in controlling noxious weeds in our area and out on the trails, and West Wickum informed us of Brand Inspection issues in the state of Montana and when traveling out of state (3 or 4 brand inspections were done during the clinic). Then, Janice made an executive decision to have Terry Shore, with WesTrends, speak to all on tack issues. She covered bits and their function and proper fit along with a few other items.

When Terry finished we all headed outside for the "On The Trail” session by our BCH members. Janice headed up this panel discussion. Sonja Berg started this session by bringing up horses that kick other horses (summation: whenever you take a horse out with other horses, 1. You are responsible for the safety of your horse as it relates to others and 2. You are responsible for the bad manners or dangerous situations that your horse creates.) We went on to discuss wild animal encounters, turning around on steep terrain, water crossings and so much more. Practice and conditioning ahead of time was a repeated piece of advice. Janice mentioned that she will be offering some pre trail ride practice sessions and easy starter trail rides to do just that thing, both at the place on Harper-Puckett and at the ranch in Wilsall.

Storm clouds started to move in and our topics were covered, so we concluded the clinic. WOW!...You should have seen how fast everyone shut down, packed up and cleared out. A huge THANK YOU to all the members that got me loaded up. I had things everywhere and I just pointed to them and they were off to my rig. Not only in the rig but neatly arranged unlike my frantic dumping of everything in late, the night before. Our 2010 clinic was a huge success and the very useful information was shared by the nu-merous people attending. Most of the comments heard started with WOW and they went on to say: How much they enjoyed themselves, Wished they had come in earlier, Would have liked it to have lasted longer, and Thank you so much for doing this. Janice will be sending a list of BCH participants to the USFS for trail clearing crew purposes. If you want a course participation card let her know. She’ll (try to) have them at the general meetings for awhile. If the shared information on this day helps any rider and/or horse stay safer on the trails this year, then it has served a worthwhile purpose.

Happy and Safe Trails to All!
Janice Cartwright

PS: A big THANK YOU goes to Circle L Arena for the use of their nice facility. Rod and Lisa gave our club a big discount because of our public service intention and because of the work we do on the trails. We did take on $100 in donations that will help with the rental cost.

Defensive Horse Safety Flyer