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We use a black powder charge that burns up to 20 feet. The targets are balloons. If you are more than 20 feet away, you are safe. The regulations won't let us set a target closer than 25 feet to the arena wall. Look in my sig photo and you can see the streaks from the powder burning as it comes out of the gun.
I did see that, which is what made me think it's probably just a powder charge. Pretty cool, regardless. Riding like that and shooting like that are hard enough on their own, much less at the same time!
Has anyone ever accidently shot their horse in the head?
Not in the head but a few have been shot on the neck and butt. Although it has been a couple of years since I have seen it happen. It doesn't hurt the horse because their skin is over 1/4 inch thick. It just burns the hairs off.
It looks like you run a different course every time. Do you get to choose your own path? Like, sometimes you weave in and out, then shoot down the middle, cross over, back to the other side, there's no real rhyme or reason, at least not that I can see anyway.
There are 54 courses and they draw them at random. There are usually 4 courses to a match unless it is a championship then there are 6. Some have distinct routes you have to follow or get a penalty, others you go do however you want. You have 2 guns and 5 rounds in each one. You always have to hit the light targets with the first 5 rounds and the red or dark targets with the last 5 rounds.
The horses either take to it right off the bat or they don't. There is no in-between. I'd say about 80% of them are ok with the noise. The other 20% are useless for shooting horses.