Update

Oh how these summer days go by...

Last weekend was the last big 'rodeo' weekend...

As I posted earlier...Moon's breathing was not good and he was well out of the money at Rifle. I hit him with another breathing supplement and some immune booster that night and the next morning...

Loaded him and Spooks up and drove to Delta for an NBHA run. I didn't know if I was going to be running Moon at that race or not. I wanted to warm him up first and see how he felt.

Luckily, he seemed to be back to normal, so I put a run on him. My riding was a tish wild going into 2nd barrel. Moon started picking up speed as he as approaching the barrel and I sat pretty hard and pulled. NOT what Ed coached me to do. LOL

Moon was running so hard though, he actually ran past 2nd somewhat before he could get turned. I have to say...In the long run...I much prefer him to run past a barrel a bit than try to overturn like he usually does. He placed 4th in the race with a 17.98. He's had a lot better runs in this arena, but I wasn't pushing him. After all, he had a long ride and a rodeo run later that night, so I was pretty happy. If we can just keep putting some runs like that together and continue to pick up a few points, I think I can get him into the top 5 of the 1D. That would be cool.

Spooks went out and made a smoken' run...which was a good thing. He jumped up from his usual 20.2 to a 19.8. He won the 4D and picked up 5 very critical points. He is now leading the 4D by 2 points now. Just gotta focus on letting the black horse keep doing what he is doing and we should be golden.

Once the boys were taken care of, I loaded them back up and we headed over Monarch Pass to Salida.

Although I got there plenty early...I didn't get a chance to ride in the arena. The county fair was going on and they had lots of stuff going on in the arena. I was fairly disappointed. It's not so much that Moon needs the chance to see a new arena as it is, I am figuring out that I need to actually be able to get in the arena and get a chance to judge the distance between the barrels.

My sit down and pull incident from earlier in the day had me a little worried. That is not the kind of riding that works on Moon. I just kept telling myself that all I need to remember to do is get up over Moon and rate him with my hands up where then need to be.

When it was time to run...I had a little bit of a problem getting Moon up to the gate. He wasn't spinning out or freaking out...there was just a whole lot of activity around the gate...lots of people on horses and lots of people on foot. Moon kind of kept stalling out. This is just something we are going to have to learn to deal with at these smaller rodeos. I have stopped worrying about the time factor about getting in the gate so much. It seems that as long as the gate man can see you coming, you are not going to get flagged out. The announcer kept talking about how getting these horses lined up to start their run is like lining up a sprint car at the light. Luckily a girl I know was there and she rode up to the gate with me. Once Moon could see into the arena...he was fine. He lined up and was ready to go. There was a long score from the gate to the timer, so I kept Moon gathered up and rated down until we were well into the arena and then let him go.

Man...that first barrel felt sooooo good. Moon rocketed out of there perfectly in line for the 2nd barrel...

I picked up my spot on the 2nd barrel and let him roll. When Moon comes out of 1st this nice and straight...there really isn't much I need to do except keep my eye on my spot, get my other hand on the rein (about 1/2 way across the arena), ride him into his pocket, sit and lift my hand...

Moon does the rest.

Everything was just right...except...as Moon was coming into the 2nd barrel, he was still building speed. I picked up on the reins and it felt like he just got stronger...

I had a total and complete panic attack.

I sat down and pulled. As soon as I did, the thought, 'oh shit...that's not what I need to do' flew through my head and I loosened my grip on the reins...but the damage was done...

2nd barrel went over.

Honestly, I don't think it was so much the sitting down and pulling that caused Moon to tick the barrel so much as it was me looking down his shoulder. If I had managed to keep my eyes on the ground in front of him, I think he was still in good enough position to make the turn.

He finished his run and had a great time...which made my mistake even more horrifying.

I was really shaken after that run. I know that in the past, I've had a few 'oh shit, he's going too fast' moments and resorted to sitting down and pulling on Moon, but I can't say that I have ever felt absolute panic like I had at that moment at 2nd barrel.

I was so disgusted, I took care of horses, loaded up and drove him in the middle of the night. The next day, I still couldn't shake the yucky feeling I had, so I called my mom.

To be continued...