Two weekends ago I participated in a horsemanship and obstacle course clinic with Jeff Claxton, held in PA. I wasn’t able to find any info about him or his clinics before going so I thought I’d post something here. The same facility is hosting another one in May if anyone is interested! I’m really glad I took my young horse!
The format was very informal, with people tackling obstacles at their own pace with some guidance from Jeff. The first day I worked with my youngster for 2 hours in the morning and another 2 hours in the afternoon. Some people only took a break for lunch.
Both days started unmounted. Most people tacked up after lunch the first day and mid-morning the second day. A few people worked only in hand. There were quite a few young horses, one 2-year-old and several 3- and 4-year-olds, as well as some more experienced trail horses and one with training as a police horse.
Jeff brought a stock trailer filled with a huge variety of obstacles. As everyone got comfortable, he added to and modified them to keep things challenging.
Jeff is very experienced and has good feel. He’s also very calm and patient. His focus is on keeping the horse comfortable, which I appreciated. There were a couple horses who went from stubborn or reactive to compliant as the two days went on. He’s also very approachable.
As far as critiques, I thought it could be a little more organized. There was one out-of-control horse the first morning, and another who was rude and kept shouldering his handler out of the way. Jeff didn’t address the first horse until after lunch and I didn’t ever see him help the rude horse’s handler, though I could have just missed it. I thought that starting with a safety briefing and an overview of some groundwork basics would have been helpful to get everyone on the same page.
Ours was also a pretty large group so if your horse doesn’t have much experience in a crowded ring, that might add another level of stress. It was really beneficial for my youngster since I mostly ride home alone, and he went from jazzed up at the start of the first session to totally nonchalant about the crowd.
Overall, it was a great experience and well worth the trip!
Now the brag: my 3-year-old was so amazingly bold! He was more interested in chewing on most of the obstacles and objects than being frightened of them. :lol: I’m so grateful to Cheryl Claxton Gros for taking tons of great pictures and videos. Here are pics of my boy in case anyone wants to see the types of obstacles we did. Also a video of him dragging a garbage bag full of cans and a video of him going through the cowboy curtain.
Cross-posting in Off Course too since this wasn’t really a discipline-specific event so I wasn’t sure where to put it!
