Three In A Row

Wow...Three clean runs in a row for Moon and I?...

That must be some kind of record after the last couple of years we've had. LOL

I have video of this run, just have until the friend who took it gets home from their rodeo weekend. :-)

I watched it and was like...'Whoa, Moon is really ratey'. The horse that used to feel like a freight train running into his turns has suddenly become a push-style horse? I knew he felt like he wasn't clocking on this run, it was sort of like someone applied a hand-brake after he turned the 1st barrel and I did start asking him to run when I heard my friend yelling, 'kick, kick, he's not running...kiiiiccckkkkk!!!'. LOL

I thought I drove him pretty deep into the 2nd turn, but once you see the video, you'll see I was a full 2-strides out when I stopped kicking and he just rated down and started to set into his turn. I had to lift him up and move him over...which didn't feel like much to me, but it's really obvious in the video. So 2nd was a little awkward...Not nearly as bad as it has been in the past, but it's there.

I stopped driving about one stride out on the 3rd barrel and it was super obvious how much Moon rated down and also obvious was 'that thing' that causes me to get tipped too forward on him when he starts to turn...I quit riding with my legs, feel him shut down and instead of giving one more kick, I lift my body up and ride like I am going to push him around the barrel. LOL.

That maneuver is what allows Moon to duck out from under me and causes us to tag barrels, even when he is set up perfectly to make the turn. We almost got that 3rd barrel too. I heard the 'ting' of the barrel on my knee and thought, 'Damn it!!' But we just barely rocked it (thankfully). It was a good enough hit that it left a scrape on my knee, so if the barrel hadn't been set tight, it would have fallen.

It's my own personal bad habit...because I sort of did it with Frosty too and caught myself. Seeing it on video though, I understood perfectly why I've tipped so many barrels even when it felt like Moon was exactly where he needed to be. He is in position, I'm just not getting his body far enough into the turn.

I was just telling CndCowgirl that the key to really getting around problem barrels is to focus on driving into the pocket until your knee is AT the barrel and then just letting the horse turn. Keeping my mind on that has made the previous 2 runs on Moon really smooth, but in the heat of a rodeo run...I totally forgot to do that and started thinking about his head and neck again. It's not that I was trying to do anything special with his head and neck...it's just where my focus landed when the adrenaline kicked in. But we survived our first rodeo run of the season in relatively good form and now I can go back to focusing on the details. :-)

The friend that video taped me is the same lady that helped me last year and if nothing else, she was super happy to see that I didn't pull on Moon's head...Not one single time. I lifted him out when I knew he was going to drop into that 2nd turn, but other than that...there was NO PULLING!! hahahaha.