14/05/2026
ACE YOUR AGILITY:
The trick with this month's course is to make the circle as small as you can while also giving your horse enough room to move. At the lower levels where you are walking or the Walk Only classes, you can put the obstacles fairly close together, trotting and cantering need more space between.
* Obstacle 1 - as close to 2HL by 2HL as possible.
* Obstacle 2 - photo in the comments of where the elbow is.
* Obstacle 6 - fill the gap, there should be no ground showing. You can use plastic milk bottles (I have been to McDonald's and asked for theirs) or crumpled up paper (you would need to bring it in every night or it will get soggy), horse feed bags. The idea is that it makes a noise and moves when your horse goes over it.
* Obstacle 7 - notice that the cones are in a STRAIGHT line.
* Obstacle 10 - build the inner side of your scary corridor lower so that your rope doesn't get caught.
PIVO POSITION: I took my Pivo off Horse Tracking and positioned it outside my arena, making sure the whole course fitted in. Think about what is important that the judge sees up close and what the judge could see from a distance , for example up close is important for the back over the pole, but it's not vital that the judge sees your scary corridor up close.
I thought I would chat a bit about process. This is the process I use each month so that I don't skip out an obstacle or miss something important.
I print the course out. I did try and read it from my phone for a few months but I made too many mistakes.
I highlight the important bits (photo in the comments), how long a halt is, is it walk, trot or canter through an obstacle, where am I supposed to be.
Then I build the course. My first practice is with my piece of paper in hand, reading the instructions again and my notes. I will then adjust the obstacle placement if I need to, the line into the obstacle, not enough space to change pace etc.
Then we do lots of practice and video. Once I have my video, I watch it with my course plan in hand, checking that I have read the instruction correctly on each obstacle, or that I have not missed out an obstacle.
Only then do I enter my video.
Good luck everyone. If you find yourself getting stressed with this month's course, remember - This too shall pass 🤣.
The International Horse Agility Club
