Play games like kids from the Wild West.

This diagram shows you how to set-up the playing field. Spread the sticks out evenly within the prison area.

Hey kids!

I just heard about this cool game from my friends in the paddock! Ya see, back in the day, traveling for months at a time got pretty boring for everyone, but there were ways to have fun, too. This game was played by children when the wagons were stopped for nooning, while waiting to cross a flooded river, or while waiting for hunters to bring back meat or lost mules and oxen. A Mormon girl traveling to Utah wrote about playing this game in her travel diary.

Materials:

• Playing field
• 4-6 sticks for both sides (total of 8-12)
• Players for 2 teams – at least 6 on each side

How to Play:

Divide the players into two equal teams; line out the playing field so it has two lines about 30 to 60 feet apart. Make an area at each end, about 6-by-10-feet, to be each team’s prison. Place an equal number of sticks on the ground in each prison. Space them out across the length of the prison.

Begin the game by one side sending out a player to dare the opponents to tag her. One of the enemies start to chase her, and that person runs for home. Home is the safe area behind the line. If she is tagged before making it to home, she is a prisoner and must immediately go over and stand in the enemy’s prison. She goes there alone, because the one who tagged this person gets chased by another player from her team, who goes into the playing field. Players try to run across the field and free prisoners held by the other side. If the player who runs across tags a prisoner, she is free. Prisoners need keep only one foot inside the prison, so it is easier to tag their hands. A team must rescue all its players who are being held in prison before they can steal any of the sticks held there. If there are no players in prison, the players try to take 1 stick at a time back to their home. Players can’t be tagged on the way back home with a stick.

The first team to take all of the sticks from the other team wins.

Hope you enjoy!

Junior Master Horseman announces the brand new Level Three curriculum, coming in July. Learn more, plus get your copies of Levels One and Two today!

Trevor Ashcraft
AQHA Youth Intern