Shooting from horseback

[getitdone1]

Took my brother to the hospital today and while waiting on him got to reading a magazine called, "Western Shooting Horse." Seems like this sport is growing fast and surprised to find so many women pictured on horseback in this magazine--shooting!

I've wondered for some time if the riders in these events provide protection for their horses ears when they're shooting? I did see ear plugs for horses in an advertisement in this magazine.

This magazine has a website:

http://www.westernshootinghorse.com/jcontent/

Maybe Griff and others here can tell us some interesting things about this shooting sport.

Don

[keyston44]

I have shot around my horse but not off of him. I do have ear plugs for him but mostly use them when the farrier is working on him when the construction equipment is running.

Key

[Bob Hatfield]

A friend of mine here in WV trains peoples horses for the sport of cowboy mounted action shooting. He travels the US on occasion doing this or they bring their horse to him. I have rode his horse (it rode me) shooting a Colt 45 loaded with course 2f black shooting at balloons. He has two big old ear plugs that look like rubber golf balls with a string between them he crams back in the horses ears.

You should have seen me trying to get that horse to run. I was gouging my heels into it's ribs like Roy Rogers yelling "HeeYaww and Git" and it would only walk slow. (not the horse fault). If the Blackfeet were chasing me I'd have to rely on the arrows nipping at the horses hide for it to take off running. Johnny Walker ( the horse trainer) yelled "He knows you don't really want him to run". "Slap him with the rains on each side". That picked up the pace some, but I felt like the horse was still taking care of me. I did hit most of the balloons, but was traveling pretty slow for a old hillbilly that hadn't been on a horse since he was 13.

By the way the horse in this story is the same horse the Marlin Rider is on in the picture Marlin has of a mounted cowboy holding an antiqued 94 Marlin.

Bob

[Griff]

I didn't use ear plugs for my horses when I competed... but several friends did. Both my competition horses would allow you to mess with their ears, but NOT stick stuff in 'em. Never seemed to bother either of 'em. Both, upon seein' my arm extend would bend that ear forward and close off the ear canal.

My current horse is much more fractious... she doesn't seem to like me ridin'... and shootin' is outta the question. And my trainin' time is severely limited. I had her with a trainer for a while... but I simply spend too much time on the road now.

If cowboy action shootin' seems expensive... mounted shootin' is at least 100 times that! I've shot with and competed against a couple of the World Champs... remember when a couple of them started... back when I was still competing fairly regularly. But, like any other sport, practice and regular competition are what help you improve and succeed... Shooting once every few months, or missin' 6 months while your competition is shooting every month, sometimes twice a month... isn't good for your standings.

But, to explain just how young and dumb we were... we even had a couple of matches that we did with live ammo on paper targets for scores! But that went away about as fast as we thought it up!