Sunday, June 21, 2009

Run Moon Run

This darn horse never ceases to amaze me. In all reality, we had a less than ideal run, but we still placed 5th(out of 18) overall and won 2nd in the 2D. Won enough to cover my entry fees and Megan's. Yayyyy Moon!



The best part? Seeing my mom's face when they announced my time of 16.841.

LMAO-Her jaw dropped. She said she never dreamed he was running that fast, especially with 1st being not good. Moon actually didn't start running until we got around 2rd. But when he got lined out, he put the pedal to the metal. I love that ornery horse.

The winning time was 16.0??

So we are in there. Fix the sticky spots and we will be golden.

Megan had a nice run. Much prettier than mine. She took 3 seconds off of her fastest time so far. She was "loping" in the low 20's. Today she stretched old Rip out a little and got a 19.8??. Good for her!!

Now it's back to the slow work to iron out the rough spots. Next week is the horse show that was postponed due to rain, so I will be able to get another run in then.

15 comments:

Paint Girl said...

Moon looked good to me! Thanks for the video!
Oh, I wish I would have continued barrel racing! Well, I do it once a year now, for fun! But I will never forget my gaming days!!

Andrea said...

Go Moon!! You guys look great!! All that slow work is paying off! Great run. And way to go Megan! Getting some seconds off your time!!! I hope you two get to go to that horse show!

cdncowgirl said...

Woooo! You can see him pick up speed through his whole run!
That slow work is paying off :) Just curious though, does he really anticipate that turn at first? Looked (to me) like you had to hold him off while he was approaching it.

Thanks for your advice the other day, I'll copy it into an e-mail and send it to Kimfer.

Rode the new horse (that ugly little black one you said you'd take lol) We will need to be doing some slow work to fine tune our communication but he seems to have a good foundation on barrels.
He got a little teeny bit hot but the good news is it didn't kick in that fear that I've had lately. I was able to stay calm and in control... which is a big relief because I need to work on getting my confidence back after the Quinn saga!

City girl turned Country Girl said...

Thanks for sharing the video!! I so love atching and hearing about other people's barrel runs!! Great job, and Moon is coming along nicely!!

Laura said...

Right on! Way to go - sounds like it was a good practice run for the show next week. You'll have a few rides to do a bit of tune-up work and then be ready to kick some butt.

Glad Megan had a good ride too!

Anonymous said...

Are you on?

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Cdn-You can see when he comes in that he is right away wanting to drop that shoulder and run kitty-wampus to first, so even though he picked up his lead, I didn't have his face or shoulder. So I made that circle and actually I didn't make a big enough one. I safetyed up too much. But figured it was better than just turning him loose and taking the chance of him hitting the barrel.
What I should have done(hind sight is so 20/20) is just keep loping circles until he got completely into the correct frame. I mean, it was an open barrel race, no one would have cared.
Did you see what he did at first? Flipped out of his lead about 1/2 way around. That is what caused his big bow. We are going to be spending some time this week just loping circles at the beginning of the pattern until he just relaxes and lopes to first correctly and then loping circles around first getting him comfortable and traveling correctly.
I also need to spend some time trotting and loping around 3rd. He wants to slice it off coming out of it. He wasn't bad yesterday, but you can see where he pauses at the backside and comes around. He just had enough momentum that it carried him all the way around it.

Usually 2nd is the turn I struggle with and he ran that one perfectly. Weird!

Unknown said...

Great video! Thanks! I know there were some problems in the run but the speed was really nice - it's like just nice enough you can see what "might be" bet that adds some incentive to iron out the rough spots.

Mikey said...

That was a good run!! Loved being able to watch that. He's working that pattern real good! I think you two look great out there!

cdncowgirl said...

So do you think he's anticipating too much and getting a bit too excited? (re the issues on 1st)

Trailboss said...

That looks like a blast! Good job.

Melanie said...

Yeehaw!!!! Way to go momma!!! And Megan too! :)

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Cdn-Moon is an interesting and what most people would consider a "difficult" individual. He has always been an all or nothing type of horse-as in he is either not moving or moving hard and fast. Cadence and balance are difficult for him at any speed. He does not get excited but I don't think he is really sure of himself going to first yet. He's anticipating it and wants to drop his shoulder and dive around the barrel. He is not naturally a very soft or bendy horse. He can run flat out and then just switch directions. I don't know how he does it. But that doesn't work very well for getting around a barrel in good form, so most of his "training" time is spent doing circles-more to the right than the left-of varying sizes. I do spirals and big to small then back to big and lope straight lines and bend him into a circle-working on making him softer, more flexible and more comfortable doing so with his shoulder up.
I would like to be able to two hand him all the way around first-but he leaves so hard that if I am not sucked up on the horn pretty hard, he sets me out the back of the saddle. It's an amazing feeling when he digs in and takes off. The next barrel comes up really, REALLY quick.;) It doesn't help that I am currently running barrels in a roping saddle.:( My barrel saddle barely fit Moon last year and now that he has filled out so much, it perches on him-LOL. I'm looking for another barrel saddle that will fit him.

Chelsi said...

GREAT VIDEO!! So cool to see you run! I agree with Stephanie, you can see the potential there. His stride is huge! and boy does he ever look like he has the power there too! .... I am sure that with your skill and his raw goods you will be able to turn him in to something great.

SunnySD said...

Pretty run - he can really rocket! I'm so jealous of your prairie/arena set-up.

Hope things are drying off a bit for you guys out there. Now that the "not enough rain for the hay" has broken over here, the litany has become "I hope it stops raining so we can get the second cutting done." Sigh - farmers, nothing's every quite as good as it could be! lol