Brego rocks the quintain

In between fox hunting, dressage lessons, and jump lessons, Hubby has been working with Brego on jousting training. It takes a pretty special horse to joust - we have found that the bossy horses do best, as they are not intimidated by another horse barreling down the lane directly at them. Brego thinks he owns the world and everything in it, so that's covered. They also have to be OK with the sound of armor, both on their rider and on other riders. Paddy probably won't ever joust, because the sound of a full set of armor really bothers him. Brego only wants to know if perhaps there is a treat tucked somewhere in all that armor. Surely, there must be... somewhere?

Training a horse to joust is a multi-step process. You have to introduce the armor, a few pieces at a time (more armor = more clanking + heavier rider). Getting a horse used to having things swinging around his head also takes time, since many horses don't like it when things magically appear in their field of vision. You need good halt-canter canter-halt transitions, and horses must learn to stand patiently at the end of the lane for each pass. When you have those elements, you can introduce the quintain. The idea is that it gives the rider target practice, and it also allows the horse to experience the sound of a lance hitting. Here's Brego's first few passes at the quintain.

Brego still has a way to go in his training. He's already done "honor" passes (no targeting) against me on Paddy, but I don't have the armor needed to do a real pass where the riders actually try to hit each other. We're hoping to meet up with some of hubby's jousting friends in the next month or two so we can have a real practice against some opponents. Given how easily Brego has handled all the "scary"  jousting experiences, we have no doubt he'll rock the actual joust just as well as he's done everything else!