On Thursday night a number of Squaw Butte members and friends attended the first Arena Night ride.  The facility, while still a work in progress had been freshly groomed and some new lights had just been installed.  There is a lot of parking for trailers, and Ms Nielson team had a grill going and some cowboy music playing.  Hamburgers, hot dogs and all the fixing were available and very tasty.

It was great to be in the saddle and Willow was full of winter energy.   After riding around a bit so he got use to the arena with it sights and sounds, we got out the brooms and ball and practiced swinging  the boom past our stocks head and seeing if we could even hit the ball.  It is a lot harder than you would think!  It didn’t take long before the stock got use to this activity, so we set up a couple of cone goals and split into teams.    That is when the laughter started and the fun began.  Both horse and rider worked up a good sweat! As we didn’t have enough old booms for all the riders, as player needed a break, new players entered the game.  We also determined that the old wood and straw brooms are more durable then the newer plastic head ones.  Duct Tape was utilized to put a couple of brooms back in service when the heads came off.

I think all who attended agree this first event was a great success, and are looking forward to attending next month.  We will be trying other horse games in the future, but I know I am looking forward to playing Cowboy Polo again.