Three Days On The Road-Run #1

There is an old rodeo saying;

Sometimes you win,

Sometimes you lose,

Sometimes you get rained out...

And that my friends... Was my weekend in a nutshell!

This was the Durango arena prior to the start of the rodeo...

What I didn't get a shot of was the other side of the arena...

It was a L.A.K.E....

And 2nd barrel was sitting right in the middle of it.

Well, what are ya gonna do?

Pretty much just had to laugh it off. I figured it nothing else...It was a good training/experience opportunity for Moon. I mean, it is very, VERY seldom that you can put together a winning run in this kind of soup (unless everyone is running in the same conditions and this was a 3 day rodeo). There are exceptions of course...sometimes a deep sticky ground will slow you down more than soup. What is most important is whether its slick or not.

I had absolutely no jitters by the time the barrel racing was coming up. I had watched quite a few of the ropers and had a pretty good feeling that the ground was not slick. I was also really fortunate that one of the ladies that I run with at the local associations was the gunner. I couldn't see her run because Moon was being a spinning, freaking out fool in the warm-up pen. (Ugghhh...He was as bad as he has ever been...but I'll explain that later) When she came out and passed me, she told me the ground was not slick so to just make as good a run as I could. Knowing that the soup still had some grip was a huge relief. I decided I was going to run Moon as hard as I could get him to run.... Which by the way... I didn't think would be very hard at all. LOL...Moon's sole experience in running in soupy mud was 3 years ago and that time he was so startled that he went all tinkerbell on me and was trying to walk on water to avoid being splashed.

I had already changed out my usual competition bit for the sliding gag that I usually use on Spooks. With the sliding gag, I can keep Moon stood up in his turns better. And whether I thought the ground was slick or not, I did think it was more prudent to try to keep him more upright.

It was hell getting Moon in the gate. Every time I got him lined out, a darned rodeo queen would walk in front of me and he would start spinning away again. A nice girl told me she was going to walk toward the gate and Moon fell in line with her and in he went... I could feel him high striding through the slop, but he was stretching out and then he got to the first barrel. Eeerrrccchhhhh...

He wanted to turn the barrel, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to get into that standing water. He got all sorts of bound up going around the first barrel. I started driving him toward the 2nd barrel as hard as I could because I knew if that was his reaction on first...he wasn't going to like 2nd none-to-much. We were still a couple of strides out when his ears came up and I knew he wasn't looking at the barrel any more...he was looking at that h.u.g.e. puddle of water. LMAO...I was actually giggling in my head. Moon ran into the water...I was kind of surprised he went straight in...but he did...and then he bound up trying to get around the barrel. He just really didn't know where to place his feet.

After that...3rd was a breeze (cause it was just mud, no standing water) and he really stretched out and run on the way home. It was a smoken' 19.9 second run (Yep...little sarcasm there ;-) But ya know...I thought he did a great job and hey...he still ran the 2nd fastest time of the performance. Only horse to beat him was the lady I know, who runs a 19y/o been-there-done-that and ran in every kind of condition you can imagine horse and even her horse ran in the nineteens.

Now...about Moon spazzing out at the gate...part of it was because as they were setting up the barrels, the clown act let off monstrous boom and a large fireworks display. Holy hell...There were barrel horses scattering like paper in a tornado in the warm-up pen. There were some not-to-happy barrel racers over that deal. That set Moon on edge more than normal and he did not think going toward the direction of that massive boom was anything he wanted to do. The other part of the problem was that I forgot to give him his OxyBoost when we got there.

Moon is currently on a vet prescribed feed through Omeprazole for gastric ulcers, so I no longer have to treat him with the tube Ulcergard before traveling. Along the way I also bought a tube of OxyBoost (by OxyGen) to help boost his breathing before his runs and it also seems to have the added benefit of helping to calm him and increase his focus. I didn't realize how much until I forgot to give it to him. Sheez! Won't be forgetting that again anytime soon. :-/

All in all, it ended up being a fun night...I ran into a lady I met when I went to New Mexico for that Ed Wright clinic. LOL...Our horses were stalled right next to each other...so after the rodeo, we went downtown for some supper and had a great visit. I didn't figure I needed to hit the bed too early, I had all day to travel a mere 150 miles the next day and was hopeful we had a better chance at some money there...

To Be Continued...