# Diagram of beginning cones courses



## wendyluvsminis (Nov 5, 2010)

I followed the advice and bought plastic pumpkin baskets to substitute for cones. 20 for 2 bucks! How should I set them up? Could someone draw a diagram or two in your response? My driving mare comes home from training today! Yippeeeeeee! Now the fun begins!


----------



## MiLo Minis (Nov 5, 2010)

I don't have any diagrams scanned and handy but some ideas for setting your cones/baskets for a beginner course are:

Give yourself 10 or 12 inches wider than the wheel base of your cart between the cones to start. As your horse and you get better and better over time you can narrow that space down till you only have an inch to spare on either side.

Set up 3 to 5 sets of cones to begin with.

You should be able to see the number on your next pair of cones from the last pair.

Keep it simple to start - maybe just in a line or a wide sweeping figure 8. Avoid really sharp turns or tight corners for a beginner horse - they will make him tense.

Look to the center of the cones. If you look AT the cones you will hit them.

Practice running over a set or two so that your horse will know the sound and feel and not panic when it does happen. After running over a set or two you can even tie a cone to your cart so that it drags along with you and she can get used to it - sometimes a cone will get hung up on your cart and be dragged if you hit it.

One stride out from the cones give with your hands and your horse will center herself. DON'T throw your reins away - just relax your hands on the reins.

Once your horse's body is between the cones forget that pair (you are either centered and fine or you are going to hit them but there isn't anything you can do about it at that point) Look to your next set so that you are driving to it.

Your horse will either love cones or hate them. Hopefully if you keep it simple to start and don't get her too uptight over them she will learn to love them!

You can add in extra obstacles such as a back up pole to knock off, a mailbox, a line of cones to serpentine through, etc and run a gambler's choice course where you do at least one set of cones between every extra obstacle which are optional.

Have fun! Cones are a blast!!!


----------



## RhineStone (Nov 5, 2010)

I knew there was a reason I saved all those Cones courses in my file cabinet!






Actually, I saved them for just this reason, so I could know what to expect that Course Designers would come up with. Now after showing ADS for ten years, I hardly ever pick up a course map. I just walk the course on foot because it doesn't always look in real life like the paper. But here are some that I have saved.

The first is the '09 Columbus Carriage Classic Scurry (or Pick Your Route) obstacles. PYR Cones are set at 2.5 meters (or 8'3"). The driver has to choose which way to drive through these cones. There are strategies for doing so, and if you would like, we can make that part of the thread, or it's own thread, because there is A LOT to it. In order to be truly competitive, it's not just driving around in the arena.






The next is Numbered Cones from the '08 Harvest Moon Carriage Classic (HM is no longer, but there were other shows in Iowa to "replace" it this year). Numbered Cones can be set based on a measurement of each vehicle's wheel base, and need to be driven in order, with the red marker on the right. Remember: Red on Right.



The "filled-in" circles on the sheet indicate the red marker. If it is driven backwards, the driver is eliminated. This happened even to a WEG driver this year who was in the top five!



There are strategies here as well that are different than driving Scurry cones.






I would not consider these courses for completely green horses that haven't driven obstacles and concur with Lori's comments about starting a green horse on cones. But this is what to expect at a show.

Myrna


----------



## hobbyhorse23 (Nov 5, 2010)

All my CDE stuff, including my cones maps, has gotten buried after two years out of the sport so I don't have much to contribute except to say great advice from Lori and I want to hear Myrna talk about strategy!

I am so jealous that you found the pumpkin baskets!! I had Mom look when she went to Walmart and she said there weren't any.





Leia


----------



## RhineStone (Nov 5, 2010)

Here is what the HM cones course looked like in real life with the markers. (The cones in the background are practice cones, hence why they are not marked and are so wide.) Notice that I am through the current set and am looking to the next set. (And the pony's falling in, but that is another story...



)






Here is a view of sets 2, 4, and 10 in real life.






This was a very challenging course for this pony, because he had some trust issues left over from another trainer, and he had a hard time with the "sea of cones" that this course looked like. We also found out after this show that he had some eye degeneration, so can you imagine what this would look like if it was blurry? Stand alone sets he was ok with, but ones piled up in a group upset him. We did get through clean, but not as fast as this pony was capable of.

Myrna


----------



## Sue_C. (Nov 5, 2010)

This is the course we had for the training CDE in October. This was hard for me to remember...but did it! This was only the second CDE for me, and the first for my mare, as she was just started in harness this summer. I was so proud of her. We didn't go as fast as I know she will be capable, would rather jog through and make it, then take out the course and scare her.


----------



## RhineStone (Nov 5, 2010)

hobbyhorse23 said:


> I want to hear Myrna talk about strategy!


Ok, here goes the book!



This may take awhile and I might come back to it with more later, but to get the ball rolling:

In PYR, the driver gets to choose which way to go. This may also be true depending on how other courses are set up, such as which way to go to get from gate 5 to gate 6, etc. I know that my gelding turns better to the left. Almost every horse has a good and a not-so-good side. Almost EVERY TIME I have tried to turn Alax hard right, we have PLOWED over a cone. He throws his head in the air and acts like I have asked for the world. I just figured this out this year, and so now I pick routes that are primarily on the left rein. Before, I just thought he was throwing one of his snits. It didn't happen with "easy corners", only hard turns, hence why it took so long to figure out. If I have to make a hard right turn, I try to use more room to do it with Alax.

Sometimes minis can squeeze into places that big horses can't, but you still need to walk the course to determine if there is enough room to "zig-zag" a set of cones. Some horses are just not good at zig-zagging, and I don't mean just a deviation, but a corner so tight that if you were driving a big horse, you wouldn't even attempt it. You need to know that about your horse. Patriot turns on a dime, Alax does not. Alax has more speed, so tight courses are not always to his best advantage. He loses too much momentum taking really tight corners.

If you have two gates that are close together on a "corner", get to the "outside" of the space between the cones to give you more room. (I'm not sure I explained that well.) Also, if you are going to hit a cone in gates like this, it will be the inside one. Getting to the outside of the set will help ensure that you won't hit cones. For Progressive Cones, get lined up square and ALWAYS drive the center. In PYR, minis can take gates at angles (when the gates are set at 2.5m), but not in a "measured" course.

If you have a choice about turning around before or after a gate, choose after. That way, you are not turning "into" or "towards" the gate, but have plenty of room to turn around after you have already went through it.

Try to reduce the amount of steps in between cones, but with some courses and some horses, staying on one rein will be faster than changing rein all the time.

When you are choosing a route, look up to see what you are headed. I hit a cone once because we went a direction that headed towards the out gate. Spider was focused on that instead of where I wanted him. That happened with Reva in Progressive Cones, too, where the gate was facing the creek. She thought we were going in the creek and wavered. Had I thought about this before hand, I would have given her more support physically and mentally.

Look for gates that "line up" with each other that you can take "together". Break up the course into "sections" so that you are not all over the course. Drive this half first, and then the other.

Know if your horse is better at first with flat out speed (spread out gates) or with tight gates. For example, if I drove Patriot flat out first, he would be so wired that he wouldn't listen as well later in the course for tighter gates. Alax can be just the opposite. (Depending on his mood) I may need to get the "flat out" gates done first so that he will listen for the tighter sets later. If your horse "poops out" on course, maybe you need to get the flat out gates done first and he can "putter" around the tighter gates later.

If you have to go past something "scary", get square with it enough that your horse can see that there is a way "through" the obstacle, that you are not headed right for it, but will drive past it. If you can, have an "out" that still fits within the rules. For example, in Kyle's PYR cones this year, there was one of those black wooden cut-outs shaped like a bear. Chad initially was going to have Kyle go one direction (on the left rein, Al's good one) past the bear to one last set of cones. I said that wasn't a good idea because if Al doesn't like the bear, he will go right and Kyle will have a hard time getting to that last set of cones. So we made the Bear gate Kyle's last set of cones so that he could either go left (the short route) or right (the "out", but longer route) to the Finish. We talked about this with Kyle during our course walk. Sure enough, Alax "stressed out" about the bear and Kyle turned him right. I couldn't say anything to Kyle during this run (nobody can talk to the driver during obstacles), so he had to remember this himself.





Some courses can require a "knockdown" or something you have to reach. If you drive this on the left of the obstacle (if possible), you have your right hand to use your whip or can put your whip and reins into the left hand to use your right. Practice driving with your reins in one hand for just such an occasion. I have known drivers that have not even attempted an "optional" obstacle, and I couldn't figure out why until I found out that they didn't feel they could drive one-handed.

As Lori said, "DON'T LOOK AT THE CONES!" Here is the mechanics of looking at the cones: You line your horse up. As you get closer to the gate, you focus on one cone. As you focus down, your head, shoulder, and ultimately your hand drop, too. As your hand drops, it tightens the rein. As the rein is tightened, the horse turns that direction AND RUNS OVER THE CONE! This is also true in narrow poles. Here is what you need to do: Get lined up with the gate and as you approach the gate, look at the winker stay adjustment buckle in between your horse's ears. Don't forget to breathe. Once your axle is past the gate, focus on the next gate. The wider the gate, the less you need to focus on the buckle, and really the only purpose of looking at the buckle is to TRAIN YOURSELF not to look at the cone! I'm serious!...you need to practice this!



Tell yourself, "Look up, look up, look up!"

You need to make sure your horse continues to move forward, or at least be engaged. Sloppy, strung out horses hit cones. Dolly is a semi-lazy mare and when you approach gates with her, we sometimes give her a little tap with the whip to keep her forward. Otherwise, she will putter through. The nice thing is that she is very accurate, so as long as she is forward, she is clean. If I touched Alax with the whip at a gate, it would unnerve him enough to bump him sideways. I just use a cluck with him, if anything.

In numbered cones, pay attention to "blind gates" or places where you may not be able to see the next number. These are typically the ones that people drive "backward". They know that "this one is #5", but don't look to see which way it is to be driven. A gate driven backward is a sure Elimination.

Know how the class is scored. Sometimes it is on speed and knockdowns are a penalty, sometimes it is on knockdowns and speed is a tie-breaker. In speed classes, knockdowns aren't going to be as important, and maybe you can "sacrifice" a ball. I have known people (including myself) that have hit balls and still won the class because the time with the 5-sec. penalty per ball still was faster than other drives. In knockdown classes, you'd better be accurate or you may not be in the ribbons.

Know the penalty rules. In pleasure driving, a canter is defined as three strides if an advantage is gained, and six if no advantage is gained. This is left up to the judge. At Walnut Hill this year, it was more like, "You pop a shoulder and you're done". I've got it on video. In CDEs, you can canter cones.

So here's the start of the Cones Strategy book. A big part of it is "know your horse". In order to do that, you need to practice.

Anyone else have any other strategies? I know that I probably forgot to list some here.

Myrna


----------



## RhineStone (Nov 5, 2010)

Sue_C. said:


> This is the course we had for the training CDE in October. This was hard for me to remember...but did it!


Wow, Sue! That course is FULL of blind gates! This is one case where you hope that you are one of the last ones, and can "follow" the "path" made in the grass (if hopefully there is some) by the previous turnouts! I did that to find gate 5 this year once!

Myrna


----------



## susanne (Nov 5, 2010)

Don't do as I did...

Being extremely vision-impaired, I knew I'd have a hard time spotting the exit gate, which was far from the last set of cones. There was, however, a pickup truck parked next to the exit, so I planned on using that as my landmark. Unfortunately, another pickup truck pulled up and parked on the opposite side of the course. We went through the last set of cones and raced for the truck -- unfortunately, the WRONG truck...

The one thing that I will definitely do again is to not think individual gates, but to picture the shape of the path. I'm very visual (haha...a cruel twist of fate now that I'm nearly blind) and I visualize everything. Looking at a blueprint, I can see myself walking through the house. So, after embarrassing myself the first day (this was Happs' Driving Trials Twice, with the entire event repeated), I drew my path and visualized the shape of the course. It was a cursive capital "S" with a zigzag (stairstep) on the tail, plus a small shape at the end that I now forget. This was two years ago and I still can see the shape -- this REALLY helped me find those blind gates.


----------



## targetsmom (Nov 5, 2010)

One thing I do for practice cones in the pasture is set up three in a triangle that can serve as two different obstacles when approached from different directions. I don't have fancy cones and they don't have numbers so this works well for me for practice. Cheaper and easier to set up too, and if the foals move them around (which they LOVE to do) there are fewer cones to set back up. Princess LOVES doing cones and not knowing which order we will do them in or from which direction.


----------



## wendyluvsminis (Nov 6, 2010)

RhineStone said:


> I knew there was a reason I saved all those Cones courses in my file cabinet!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This one looks harder. Did I mention I often get lost while shopping, and very often lose my car in the parking lot!


----------



## wendyluvsminis (Nov 6, 2010)

Wow, there's alot to this! We will start tomorrow! Thanks for all the wonderful advice!


----------



## hobbyhorse23 (Nov 6, 2010)

That was very interesting, Myrna! Clearly the different classes offered in Pleasure Driving shows require more complicated strategizing than running cones in CDE. I've never had to worry about picking which sets of cones to do first, for instance!



1 through 20, in order please, no choice about it.



You do absolutely have to be aware of your horse's strengths and weaknesses however, and take into account also how tired he is after the marathon. The more tired your horse, the less forward he is and he may also lose agility and responsiveness if he's really wrung out. That means you will have to drive him differently and perhaps switch routes to one which is shorter or less risky in order to avoid penalties.

Speaking of only picking a chapter of the book and coming back later, I'm going to pick one small thing from your post to discuss for the moment but will probably come back to other points when I can.



RhineStone said:


> Here is what you need to do: Get lined up with the gate and as you approach the gate, look at the winker stay adjustment buckle in between your horse's ears. Don't forget to breathe. Once your axle is past the gate, focus on the next gate. The wider the gate, the less you need to focus on the buckle, and really the only purpose of looking at the buckle is to TRAIN YOURSELF not to look at the cone! I'm serious!...you need to practice this! Tell yourself, "Look up, look up, look up!"


I agree 100% that you need to look up. That is why I would strongly recommend NOT looking at the winker-stay buckle! I see that all the time in people driving dressage. They stare at their horse's head like they could beam their thoughts into it and then wonder why the horse's energy stalls out at he wobbles along on straight lines and does ovals instead of circles. First of all, look at your own posture. You're probably tightened up and frustrated, elbows clamped to your side, hunching your shoulders and focusing all your own energy internally and in the general direction of your horse's rump. Your horse is just mirroring your posture! Secondly, you aren't giving your horse any focus if you're doing that. You stare down, he stares down, nobody has any sense of forward movement or getting somewhere.

The single best remedy for this entire situation is to LOOK UP. Way up. Pick a visual marker in the direction you want to go, like a tree or a rock or another (non-moving!) landmark, and focus on going there. Then just like orienteering in the woods, when you get to that reference point you pick another and drive towards it. This means that for cones you pick something that lines up exactly with the middle of the cone set and drive straight toward it. Don't worry about the cones themselves. If you start at the right point and drive towards the right point you'll pass through the cones cleanly on the way. The problem with training yourself to look at the winker-stay buckle so you don't look at the cones is that it's like trying not to think of pink elephants! Your _attention_, if not your actual eyes, is still on the cones and so you're still going to run into the problems Myrna lists. Maybe this isn't the case as you get better, but then you'll find that staring at the blinker stays still means your eyes aren't up looking for the next set of cones. You cannot afford to be locked up within yourself, concentrating on not hitting one set at a time instead of driving the course as a whole if you want to do well.

When you look up at where you want to go your posture improves, your shoulders come back, your core muscles engage, you take a better feel of the reins and your sense of focus and purpose infects your horse. He goes where you look! So if you want him to go forward then _look_ forward, not at the cones or the back of his head.

Drive the horse. Drive the course. Nothing else matters.





Leia


----------



## MiLo Minis (Nov 7, 2010)

.....and Myrna only picked a couple of the different cones classes, that may be offered, to discuss!





I do agree with Leia about looking up - I advise my students to pick something in a direct line past the cones to look at such as a particular blade of grass or weed even rather than asking them to focus on any part of the horse. Almost everyone when they first start wants to focus on the horse's behind if they aren't looking at the cones.


----------



## RhineStone (Nov 8, 2010)

OK, I will rewrite this so that you understand what I mean.



RhineStone said:


> Here is what you need to do: *Get lined up with the gate, *meaning look up at the set of cones and square yourself to it. As you approach the gate, *meaning when you are right in front of it, *THEN look at the winker stay adjustment buckle in between your horse's ears. Don't forget to breathe. *Once your axle is past the gate, focus on the next gate.* The wider the gate, the less you need to focus on the buckle, and really the only purpose of looking at the buckle is to TRAIN YOURSELF not to look at the cone! I'm serious!...you need to practice this!
> 
> 
> 
> Tell yourself, "Look up, look up, look up!"


This technique works REALLY WELL in "accuracy" cones courses. It is not as important in speed classes or where the cones are not extremely tight. In Progressive Cones, where the cones are measured from your wheel width and go from 20"-2" in six gates (#1 - 20", #2 - 16", #3 - 12", #4 - 8", #5 - 4", #6 - 2") you can't turn your head to look up at the next gate until you are absolutely through the gate, especially in the last two gates. Again, speed doesn't matter as much. In Scurry, where the cones are measured at 2.5m (or 8'3"), you don't have to look absolutely straight ahead because you should be able to get a Mack truck through that space!





The nice thing about the buckle for Progressive is that it is always there. It doesn't move (people, cars, etc.), it is always (or should be square to the space) and you can't count on that with trees, bushes, posts, etc, there is only one buckle vs. a number of posts that might not be directly in front of the gate. I know of people that have a hard enough time remembering where they need to go on the course nevermind trying to remember what they were going to look at while going through the gate. And, for that last gate, your horse's head needs to be straight, so this helps you make sure he remains straight through there.

I don't find this spot as "looking down" because we run Progressive at a Slow Trot, especially on grass, so Alax's head is up and in front of me. Yes, I realize that may not be the case with all horses, but as I said before again, "really the only purpose is to train yourself not to look at the cone". Every driver I have ever taught wants to look at the cone. It is human nature. It's like looking at the jump while going over it. I had a jumping instructor that had to teach me to look up by saying, "Look where you want to go. If you want to end up IN the jump, keeping looking at it. If you want to go over it, you need to look up!"



Now, There was a balcony at the end of the arena that I could look literally up at while going over the jump, and my jumping got better. BUT, that jumping didn't require the absolute accuracy that Progressive does, therefore to START OUT, the buckle gets the driver's eyes off the cones at their sides and up at something. Eventually, if the driver wants to look further away, that is fine, but it initially gives "cheaters" a target. If you have been driving CDE cones for a number of years, it would probably be going "backwards" to use this technique. But if you start driving 2" clearance cones, the buckle works great.

I didn't say "stare at the buckle (or the horse's butt) through the whole course". I said, "As you approach the gate..." You are looking at the buckle for a split second. Once you are through, find and line up for the next gate. Maybe watching my YouTube Walnut Hill Progressive Cones course video will help you understand what I am talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyOJgKSCcQ8 BTW, I don't specifically remember thinking, "Look at the buckle" while running this course. I had to think that when I was practicing for Progressive months ago. Looking up at a tree wasn't enough "incentive" for me to not look at the cone. It was easy for me to think, "Line up, line up, line up, buckle, find next gate, line up, line up, line up, buckle," etc.... When I drive Scurry or Timed Cones, it is more like just counting gates with maybe a, "Get to the outside of that tight turn" and "half-halt, now GO", etc.

There were two shows that we went to this year that offered Progressive Cones, and I was clean in both of them; on stone dust (where a lot of people make it through clean because the surface is absolutely smooth) and on grass (where literally half a dozen people make it through clean in the WHOLE SHOW of about 70-80 turnouts because there are lumps and bumps in the grass).

Myrna


----------



## hobbyhorse23 (Nov 8, 2010)

I getcha Myrna, I just disagree that it's a good idea.



Maybe it's because my horse has a very low headset most of the time so looking at his buckle IS looking strongly down. Maybe it's because being trained for CDE I was taught that driving the entire course as a flowing whole was the best way to be both fast and accurate so I'm used to looking for the next set as soon as my axle clears. Or it could be just because I, personally, have a tendency to pull my energy in too tight and forget to breathe as I go through the cones. I _had_ to learn to focus outside the horse-and-vehicle unit in order to get forward enough to go clean and for me (and many people I know) that means looking up at where I want to go just as your jump instructor said. Kody used to wobble terribly if I looked at him at all, even for a moment!



So from my perspective, looking down at the buckle would not be helpful as it would not teach me not to focus on my current location between the cones nor improve my accuracy.

We each do things differently because that's what works for us, but I know many people out here who would get into a lot of trouble looking at the buckle. Just sayin'!



I'd like to drive a Progressive Cones course someday as I think it would be really fun. I still suck on accuracy if someone points me from a walk at a set of parallel poles but the more forward I am and the more I see it as part of an entire pattern, the more accurate I get. Kody and I have gone clean on bumpy grass at Intermediate clearances before, however tight those are.





Leia


----------



## RhineStone (Nov 8, 2010)

hobbyhorse23 said:


> if someone points me from a *walk* at a set of *parallel poles* but the more forward I am and the more I see it as part of an entire pattern, the more accurate I get.


That is a whole 'nother obstacle talk!



You have to do parallel poles fairly fast! Line up, line up, line up, look up and GO!



And don't turn out of them until absolutely clear of them. (Chad learned that the hard way with the 4-wheel Runabout at a big show!



)

"Gambler's Choice" style obstacles require some wholely different strategies!

Myrna


----------

