Mark and his wife, Lee, owners of Bolender Horse Park, are the founders of the International Mountain Trail Challenge Association (IMTCA), and Mark is a three-time National Mountain Trail Champion. Mark takes great pride in designing and building unique Mountain Trail courses throughout North America and abroad and has written the popular book, Bolender’s Guide to Mastering Mountain and Extreme Trail Riding. And he carves out time to administer a judging school that certifies judges in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe for Mountain Trail and Trail Challenge.

Mountain Trail, a relatively new competitive equestrian sport that began in 2000, was new to me. When I had the opportunity to interview Mark and get to know this warmhearted and engaging couple, Mark’s enthusiasm and passion for the sport was contagious. And after observing his clinic at Equine Affaire, I was blown away. I knew I needed to learn more.

Julie Maddock: Unlike many of your contemporaries who grew up around horses, you started riding and training later in life. What sparked your interest in horses, and how did you get started in Mountain Trail?

Mark Bolender: I got my first horse at 39. I never desired to be a trainer or a clinician. I had many other fields of interest, but my daughter asked me for a horse. So, I got her a horse and built her a barn. Then I got more horses and built a bigger facility. Later, I hired a full-time trainer to teach me to ride and travel with me to work with world-class horses as I learned traditional horse training and discovered what works.

Then I got hooked on Mountain Trail.

My wife, Lee, and I had fallen in love in Florida when we met at a clinic I was teaching. Together, we thought about making Mountain Trail an international discipline—it’s so fun and so good for the horses. Lee began the marketing, getting the Bolender name out there, and sending our info to expos—and people started to see the videos of Mountain Trail and my horse Checkers. That horse is one in a million! Checkers put me on the map, and he’s now a Breyer horse.

JM: How would you define Mountain Trail?

MB: It started for the recreational trail rider. It’s for any and every breed, for every discipline—whether it’s English, Western, stock seat, whatever—everyone can enjoy it. It’s kind of a combination of three-day eventing, dressage, and reining. We need a broke horse; we need precision. And it is fun for the horse and the rider. At Level 1, everyone is walking between the obstacles—you walk over the obstacles or through them. At Level 2, you’re trotting between the obstacles. And at Level 3, you are canter/loping between the obstacles and then stepping onto them. It sounds easy, but when you try it, it’s difficult.

JM: What would you say to a rider who is apprehensive about attending a Mountain Trail training program and the daunting course obstacles?

MB: If I can do it, you can do it. I will show you how to believe in your horse. I know where I can take you and your horse.

It’s about properly presenting the obstacle to the horse; do it right, and the balance beam should only take about five minutes to master. We are really good at demanding and telling a horse to do something, but we have forgotten the art of asking and teaching. And that is what a rider will learn in my clinics.

Instinct is very different from the intelligence of the horse. And you will never beat instinct. The instinct that the horse has to read you is far superior to your ability to read the horse. And we will show you how that works.

At our clinics, we start with riders out of the saddle. I need to get rid of the heartbeat. The horse can feel your heartbeat, your tension. So, if I can remove that from the equation, I can face the horse, and they can read my confidence. I help the horse become bold and confident and trust the rider. On average, teaching a horse to walk across a swinging bridge will take five minutes. And with 50 percent of them, I can teach them to do a 180 on it within ten minutes.

JM: How can we listen more to what our horses are saying?

MB: Learn to read their language—their eyes, muzzle, and ears twitching. You can tell what they are saying.

Put your arrogance in a box. As humans, we tend to look down on things without realizing it. With horses, we’re not superior; we’re not inferior. We’re just different. We have to step into their world and learn their language instead of bringing them to our world and values.

JM: You’ve designed and built Mountain Trail courses worldwide. How do you determine the course design?

MB: Each course is unique and built for the site. I think about how to lay it out visually, where to put the ponds, and how to make it both pretty and functional art. And horses are brutal on obstacles, so I need to engineer and build a safe course. The average course is about $200,000. We usually build all the obstacles in our shop in Washington, put them on a semi, and ship them. We arrive onsite, and building the course takes about five days. On days six and seven, we do clinics and demonstrations, and love watching people show off the horses on their new dream course.

This Q&A with Mark Bolender is a web exclusive for Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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For the first time, the sport of mountain trail was experienced in Israel, thanks to Noam Sitbon Alimi – board member of the Summit Association – who arranged to have Mark and Lee Bolender from Bolender Horse Park in the United States come over and do a judge’s clinic, trail clinic and a mountain trail challenge this past month. 

Mark and Lee Bolender founded the International Mountain Trail Challenge Association (IMTCA) in 2014 because they saw a need for a regulated mountain trail sport with set rules and a scoring system, allowing challenges to take place anywhere in the world. And it has. Since the founding, the IMTCA has spread, not only throughout the U.S., but to Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Italy and now Israel. 

“They wanted to bring it for the horsemanship,” shares Mark Bolender on why they asked IMTCA to come to their country. “Beautiful discipline, fair and consistent.” 

The clinics and challenge were held at Haniel Farm in the city of Khani’el, Israel. It took them five months to prepare for the event, including overcoming naysayers and having to build the IMTCA obstacles based off design drawings from Mark. However, the team from the Summit Association did not let anything get in their way to bring the exciting sport to their country.

“To bring a new branch of riding to Israel has its bureaucratic challenges, as this is the first that the Summit Association has done this, but good communication between myself with Mark and Lee helped overcome some of the difficulties,” shares Noam.

IMTCA Clinics and Challenge in Israel

While the Bolenders were there, they held a judge’s clinic. Part of what makes the IMTCA different from other trail events is that it has a set of scoring rules on a points system – similar to reining – so that the scoring is as objective as possible. Each obstacle is broken into three scoring sections: entrance, middle and exit. Horse and rider teams can earn a 0, which is an acceptable score meaning no points were taken away; have points deducted for things like not being straight, hitting a pole, entering or exiting an obstacle wrong, refusing an obstacle, etc.; or achieve pluses for a truly stellar ride. For example, a horse that is actively hunting – looking for the trail with his head/eyes downward – may receive a +.5 or +1 on a section of an obstacle. 

During the judge’s clinic, 15 participants from Israel learned all the rules for the challenges, including what tack is acceptable, as well as how to score someone’s ride. At the end of the clinic, the participants received judging certificates and can now judge official IMTCA trail challenges. 

In addition to the judge’s clinic, the Bolenders held a trail clinic to teach the ins and out of mountain trail, including how to safely introduce a horse to an obstacle, how to improve your scores and other tips. The Israel team was excited to have the Bolenders come over to teach them the sport of IMTCA in what Yair Alimi called a, “professional, informative and exciting clinic.”

Mark always starts people on the ground first, to get the horses and riders used to the obstacles in-hand, before mounting up. The 35 participants learned the Bolender Method, which involves teaching your horse to stay out of your “bubble” so they don’t come over on top of you while completing an obstacle. 

Finally, on the fourth and final day, they held an official trail challenge. Typical IMTCA challenges have both in-hand and riding for different divisions, which can include novice, youth, level 1 (walk only), level 2 (walk and trot) and level 3 (walk, trot and canter/lope) as well as special classes such as gambler’s choice or ride one, lead one. 50 competitors competed in youth riding, level 2 and level 3 at Israel’s first IMTCA Challenge.

“All rode western except one person on an Arab riding English,” shares Mark. Other breeds represented were Quarter Horses, Paints and one mule. 

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After the challenge, they held a ceremony to thank all those who had worked so hard to make this event happen – including the board of the Summit Association, as well as Mark and Lee Bolender – and to celebrate the cooperation between the two organizations.

“It lived up to all my expectations and more,” shares Noam, “and the feedback that I received from all who participated was positive. [They were] impressed.” 

The Future of IMTCA Mountain Trail

The Summit Association plans to continue the sport of IMTCA mountain trail, Mark shares. “They are looking forward to participating in the IMTCA World Buckle competition,” he adds. In addition, they have already made plans to have Mark and Lee back in 2024 for more clinics. 

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mark and Lee for their super interesting and professional clinic,” Noam shares. “We really enjoyed having them here in Israel and we’re looking forward to seeing them again next year.”

For more information about the International Mountain Trail Challenge Association and events in your country, visit the IMTCA website.

This article about the IMTCA is a web exclusive for Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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