BrownEyedCowgirl

Slacker

2012-01-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

Once again another week has flown by and sadly lacking in posts...

Sorry, but I'm going to be AWOL for a bit longer...

Be back sometime next week and then we can get down to business. ;-)

Nuances

2012-01-23T22:38:00.001-07:00

Not sure where last week went to...

We had some really nice days, so Megan and I rode...and then the weather changed. It was mostly rain, a dusting of snow. More moisture in 24 hours than we have had all winter. So much for riding for the last few days.

I had pretty much just left Moon alone while he was healing up and have been focusing on Frosty, but there is a cutting clinic coming up at the end of the month and Megan asked if she could go. I thought Moon would be the horse for her to ride, as he is pretty good on cattle and she will be able to focus on listening to the instructor. I am taking Frosty. That could be real interesting for me as one of Frosty's big fears is c.a.t.t.l.e., Lord knows why, he grew up on a cattle ranch, but there is no more babying the big buckskin. He IS going to have to try to turn into the horse I think he is.

We started riding Moon again. So far, so good.

Sometimes I feel like I am repeating myself on here...same story...new year...

I have been working very hard at perfecting the Ed Wright method of riding a barrel horse. Which is very much like striking a 2-point position if you ride english.

Going to the gym is paying off, cause all I can say is hamstrings...hamstrings...hamstrings!

Oh sure, if your quads are out if shape, you'll feel the burn, but since I started working out and have strengthened up my hamstrings, I can tell you, my leg is a lot easier to keep steady.

The other thing Ed is adamant about is keeping your hands about mid-neck and jockeying from there (Hello lower back!). Sometimes I get to giggling because it reminds me a lot of that scene from The Black Stallion where Henry (Mickey Rourke) is on a bale of straw and demonstrating to Alex how to ride a race horse. (Unfortunately YouTube does not contain that particular clip...but I'm sure most of you are like me and know that movie by heart.)

Riding in a straight line like that is pretty easy. It's implementing the thought process of the turn that I really need to practice...practice...practice. Ed showed me how to gather, rate and turn without having to sit down and bring my hand back toward the saddle horn, as is such a common thing for us barrel racers to do. I didn't have much success accomplishing that AT his clinic (which was frustrating), but I did understand what he was saying and how he thinks the turn should be accomplished.

Now obviously, riding the clunky, poky Frosty makes practicing all that in slow motion pretty easy.

Oh yea...I'm practicing it on all of my horses. My goal is not to just make these changes to my riding on Moon, but on all of the horses. Ed's style really speeds up the turn times. I might get outrun in a horse race (the straight-aways), but I see no reason to lose a race due to a slow or bad turn.

Moon on the other hand is quick and likes to anticipate. I find myself dealing with the same shoulder and bending issues as what I noticed on Moon last spring. Going to the left he wants to over-bend his neck and push his shoulder to the outside. Going to the right, he gives me his nose, but pushes his shoulder into the turn.

The left is easily fixed by a small lift of the left hand and a slight tightening of the outside rein. If he insists on continuing to push that shoulder to the outside, I just bump his ribs with the outside foot and make him bring everything back in line.

The right is giving me a bit of difficulty. I realized that I when I was lifting and pushing the rein across Moon's neck to ask his shoulder to move over, that I was also lifting and squeezing my right shoulder in. When I do that, Moon just drops his shoulder out from under my hand and he leans into the turn. So I have been working on keeping my shoulder out and level and lifting from the ribcage. It's a smidgeon frustrating because really...it just feels awkward as hell to me. I actually practice it in the evenings when I am sitting in the house. Hopefully it won't take too long for the correct movement to become rote.

The hip thing balanced out quickly enough...I can actually walk and run on the treadmill without falling off. LOL. I have to think less about how my right foot lands and no big surprise...most of my hip pain is gone.

I am working my upper body to attain muscle balance...there is about a 10 lb difference between my left side and my right. Of course the left is the one that is over-built, which is what was causing me so many shoulder and neck problems. Yoga is helping with my balance and Zumba is kicking my ass, but if I ever get it, I guess that means I will have attained coordination between my upper and lower body...Right?

It Finally Arrived

2012-01-17T21:13:00.001-07:00

While this was the worst buying experience I have had on Ebay...as it took the seller an entire month to get me my item...

It finally arrived...

(giggles)

I bought a dressage saddle. It's a Campbell for those of you are interested. Not super high quality, but nice, soft leather and it is in almost new condition. From what I could find, when these saddles sold new, they cost around $1,000. I picked this one up for under $200, so I don't think I can get hurt on it.

I, of course, immediately ran outside with it and started plopping it on the backs of different horses. The horses were less than impressed with the sight of such a strange contraption and were quite spooked about the idea of allowing that on their back. There was much rolling of the eyes and snorting. LOL

Sadly...I have NO IDEA if it actually fits anyone. I am woefully at a loss. Even though this is supposed to be a med/wide tree, it looks awfully narrow in the gullet to my 'western' eye. (Here we go with that problem again...)

I thought about taking pictures, but I think the best option is to simply get with the gal I am hoping to take lessons from and have her come over and we can go through the herd and she can show and tell me what I need to know.

I probably should have started lessons and got some actual working knowledge of the new-to-me discipline before splurging on a saddle, but... (shrugs)

As far as the dressage...it's more about learning the principles and correct techniques than it is about training a specific horse. I would like to start taking lessons once a week and will probably ride one of the instructor's lesson horses to start with. I just really want to have my own tack, so that as I learn, I can practice at home between lessons. So whoever the saddle fits (hopefully more than one)...will become the practice 'dummy'. (evil giggle)

Lordy...

That is just the tip of the iceberg this year though...

Speeding Up The Front-End

2012-01-13T09:48:00.001-07:00

One of the biggest things I have been working with on Frosty, since the conversation I had with my farrier a couple of months ago, has been to achieve some quickness in his front-end.

(Photo courtesy of Fantastyk Voyager from when I was at the Ed Wright clinic in New Mexico)

Once Bub started explaining everything about where Frosty was breaking in his loin, things become really clear and I went back to working on getting the big, lazy buckskin to m.o.v.e. those front-feet.

It's a lot of work...for both me and Frosty.

Frosty is made to and naturally inclined to power off of his hind-end...the way we want all of them to. I wasn't doing anything with his head or face to shut him down in the front, he just wasn't lifting or extending his shoulders. Part of it is laziness...part of it is residual from the IR.

Frosty's IR was pretty severe by the time I figured out what was going on and he had apparently been dealing with it for some time. Undoing the damage to his muscles has taken longer to accomplish than I thought it would...but I am kind of stumbling through the weeds here as it is the first time I have knowingly dealt with the problem.

The fact is...Frosty gets a whole lot more sore than anything I have ever dealt with before. In Frosty's case, when he gets sore...he gets stooo-pid!!...as in really radical, followed by being very dull and then he blows up.

He is getting better about the blowing up thing. He only bucked once last summer. I don't think it's because he is getting 'over' the bucking thing...I think it's because I can read him a lot better and when I feel him start to get tense and resistance...I get off and ground-work the begezzus out of him.

We are getting there though. I spend a lot of time working on just getting extension in the front-end, at the walk. One of the things Bub told me was to get that, I needed to move my feet back and apply either a rolling heel pressure or bump to the sides about where the back cinch lays. Applying a cue in that spot makes the horse lift up his ribcage, use his abdominal muscles and allows the front-end to extend. The best way to get the extension is to alternate-when the left front leg is coming up, roll heel or bump the right side, when the right front leg is coming up, roll heel or bump the left side.

It sounds ridiculously easy...but it's a lot of work. My legs are continually working with every stride and Frosty certainly is not used to using his abs or the full length of his back. When we first started, Frosty could barely hold that position for more than a few strides at a time. So I would have to let him drop, shuffle along 'til he caught his breath and then ask again. The poor horse was breaking a sweat and huffing and puffing and we never got out of a walk.

It's working though...we have graduated to some long-trotting and are actually getting some true extension and his knee is getting flatter. His lope is much more forward as well, but we have a lot of work to do before he really gets true and balanced there.

It's finally starting to show up in his frame as well...

(Yea, we're talking about you, goof-ball.)

He is looking less like a pregnant mare about to foal and more like a mare that just foaled and is starting to pull up. ;-)

Frosty never looks as belly-liscious in photos as what you can see in real life...but if you look at where his belly is bulging in the photo above (the bulge is at the same level as the blue step-stool), you can see that he still has some 'sag'.

The other notable change is that he has once again filled out over his croup and does not look as long-backed as he did before. His pelvis is starting to tip forward again and his shoulder is starting to lay back. He's not discernibly downhill anymore either. Huh!...funny how proper movement and muscling can fix a lot of purported conformation faults. ;-) (Yea, yea...that's my jab at the failing-fugly conformation 'experts'...Sorry, I doubt I will ever stop poking fun at their delusional critiques.)

Pony Post

2012-01-10T23:14:00.000-07:00

Okay...so I have neglected to talk about the horses for some time now, and I apologize for that...but...

We have been on a holding pattern around here. Because of the unusually dry and mild winter we have had...

Moon is still in pretty decent shape...

It has taken quite a bit of time and observation, but I can say with confidence that I now believe that ALL of the issues I was having with Moon were...

Ulcers!

*The continued loin pain

*The repeated stopping and almost acting like he had to urinate

*The raised, flagging, wringing tail

*The off stride

*The uncomfortableness associated with hauling

*The gate issues at the last few barrel races

*The nasty attitude and excessive rage toward the other horses

I'm fairly confident that if Moon had not jammed his back, I would have been much quicker to just assume it was an ulcer issue and switched him to a better ulcer product than what I was using. Buuuttt...the way it all played out...

Yea...life sucks like that sometimes.

Once I realized what the problem was, I switched Moon's feed and ordered some U-Guard. He is much improved.

Things will be handled much differently this coming year. I have lots of changes in mind.

Okay...sooooo....Anyone interested in a new blog???

This is someone I know in real life, who just started a new blog. She is a pro-level barrel racer and an absolute hoot. So stop on by and help me give her a little encouragement to keep on with her blog. If some of the stories she has told on FB were any indication of what life was like on the rodeo road...it'll be an interesting and often hilarious read!

Chasinthedream

A Flying Trip

2012-01-08T14:48:00.002-07:00

Sheez...Back after a flying trip. The hubs and I waffled back and forth about going to one of his MC functions and at the last minute decided to go. I am so glad we did. The guys get a lot more chances to see each other throughout the year than us girls do, so it's waaayyyyy fun when we do get the chance to flock together.

In the middle of a gaggle of sisters...

My hubby on the far left with some of his brothers...

I know one thing...I'm not used to partying the night away anymore. I'm exhausted and so glad to be home.

Leaning To The Right

2012-01-05T15:36:00.004-07:00

OMG...Okay...I have to share this with you guys...cause it is too stinking funny not to...

Today I got on the treadmill and proceeded to work myself up to a pretty strong walk (about 4.3mph).

And then I about fell off the treadmill.

Giggling with embarrassment, I righted myself and took off walking again.

I paid a bit more attention to where my feet were landing and noticed that I kept fading off to the right.

Squaring myself up...I kept on striding...

Next thing I know, I about fall off the treadmill again.

Well...W.T.F???

For the next 20 minutes I had to actually c.o.n.c.e.n.t.r.a.t.e!!! on walking in a straight line.

Seriously? Walking is just one foot in front of the other right?

So...while I am laughing at myself because I actually have to focus...The thought that Moon and I have the same problem pops into my head...

Uuuhhhh???

Wait a minute here.

Moon and I have the same problem?

Moon has the most annoying habit of fading off to the right when we are riding out in the open.

I keep fading off to the right on the treadmill?

It's my right hip that keeps causing me pain and has to be repeatedly adjusted.

I struggle with my horses leaning into the first barrel, or in Spooks case...the 2nd and 3rd barrels...which CdnCowgirl noticed in some videos this summer!

Coincidence?

I think NOT!!!!!

This is an interesting development, but WOW! I might actually be able to make several training 'issues' disappear without having to do a single bit of training on anyone except myself. This 'get fit' thing is already paying off!

Guess I Gotta Do It

2012-01-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

I'm not really a resolutions kinda person. Pretty much, if I decide I want to do something...I just go ahead and do it. For better or for worse, for good or for evil...

This year however...I and my hubby and I joined the local gym!

We have very different goals...

The hubs wants to lose weight.

I want to gain a bit and get my muscle mass built back up.

Last year was the first year I have rode and worked as hard as I did and didn't gain the muscle and tone I usually do. It was really depressing. The first wicked sign that I am not as young as I once was.

This fall when my back started spasming again, I had the chiropractor work me over and work me over. I doubled up on my MSM and even picked up some all natural pain relievers. That finally helped break the spasms. Finally the chiropractor was able to get my neck and back to stay in, but he told me...my back muscles are seriously imbalanced and that is what keeps yanking me out of alignment. He recommended I start doing some weight-lifting and yoga.

Then the holidays started with Thanksgiving, then the NFR, then Christmas...well...we all know how that time flies by...

So here we are in January, finally getting around to jumping on the treadmill.

Literally!

I know my cardio is crap. My back muscles are imbalanced and my legs are sure not what they used to be. Do I really need to mention that I ain't exactly sporting six-pack abs?...Oh good...cause...yeaaa...that was never a reality, even when I was in primo condition.

I can't complain about everything though...I still got my 'guns' and weight isn't an issue.

I gotta confess...Ya'll know my addiction to sky-high heels right?

Well since my legs (and hamstrings) have gone as soft as marshmallows and I got a bit of that 'c'-word stuff going on back there...I haven't been terribly comfortable in skirts above the knees. Seriously...Sky-high heels NEED a little leg showing. I'm not talking 6-inch heels and 3-inch skirts...but ya know...it would be nice to be able to show a little bit of a well-toned thigh again.

Hey...just because I am in my forty's doesn't mean I don't like to turn it out once in awhile. ;-) LOL

I am excited about some of the classes that are available as well...Zumba dance? I've heard about it...haven't actually seen anyone do it yet...but I'm game. There are also Yoga classes, Pilates classes, Step classes, Aerobics classes and (squeals)...Kickboxing!!

Okay...so besides vanity...there is a more basic reasons for getting into better physical condition...my back for one...but ultimately I think my lack of strength last year really hindered my competitive riding ability. I need to get my leg strength and core strength back up to par so I feel like I can really ride in a balanced manner.

Wish me (us) luck...I'm pretty sure sometime in the next few weeks I will be on here whining about how sore I am. ;-)

(And Yes...I will be getting back to the horsie-posts immediately...I haven't abandoned the ponies...just been figuring out a few things in my head)

Those After Christmas Sales

2012-01-02T20:56:00.003-07:00

I took advantage of the clearance sales this year and build myself some new Holiday decorations...

70-75% off of the original price sure goes a long way toward recreating some of those super expensive pre-mades...

I've had this boot decoration for countless years and it sorely needed updating...

I even broke with my preference for the traditional look and splurged on some fancy, non-traditional colored flowers...
(Sorry, didn't realize that picture was so blurry until I posted it.)

I couldn't resist the beautiful purple of these flowers...
Oh well...A little break from tradition never hurts once and awhile. Megan loves purple, so it fits.

LOL...I ended up with more Christmas decorations hanging around after Christmas than I bothered to put up before. Finished them just in time to tear everything down and pack it up 'til next season. ;-)

Lost In Time

2011-12-30T11:27:00.001-07:00

Weellll....Sorry about that guys! Time just plumb got away from me after my last post. We had a very low key Christmas, but my MIL was here for the holiday. That was much enjoyed. Then I started hitting some of the after Christmas sales. L and Megan and I spent part of a day together, shopping and doing lunch. The weather has been beyond gorgeous as well, so have been riding too. Last night I was talking to my mom and she wished MH and I a Happy Anniversary....

Ummmm???

(crickets)

Uuuuhhhh???

Both MH and I forgot!

Besides being wrapped up in our own daily activities...We are starting new ventures that have kept our minds busy. I can't wait to tell you all about them. But have to keep the lid on just a bit longer.

But....

Ding, Ding, Ding...Anonymous (Spotz, is that you? ;-) guessed who those colts were....Gunner in the first picture and Shooter in the second.

Sorry, you did not win a fabulous prize...but remind me when I spill the beans about what we are cooking up and if you want a prize I will have something to mail to you.

Megan and her BF went back to South Dakota for a couple of days before Christmas and that is where the new pictures of the horses came from. I have been needing to go back for like 6 months now....To get Shooter...but just haven't had things organized around here well enough to fit in a new horse. With the barn done now, hopefully the weather will hold up just a bit longer and I can get that done. Looks like the procrastination means it will be time to bring Gunner back as well, so Megan can get him started under saddle this coming year. She better not wait too long or she is going to end up with the same problem I have with the big bay...too tall to get on. LOL

Megan got some new photos of Miss Belle Starr as well. Belle Starr is the dark bay in the foreground...

The lighter bay filly behind her was sired by the same stallion and is out of a King/Leo bred mare. My brother named the filly....Prissy! (uugghhh, what a horrible name)

Belle will be the last of the crossing my Lady Bug's Moon mares onto our Oklahoma Star bred stallion. I don't think the nick is working. There is not enough bone on either Beretta or Belle to suit my taste, particularly since these are big-bodied girlies. Belle is 3 months younger than the filly with her and almost as tall and definitely as big-bodied. The legs don't match though. It's a major disappointment to me that the nick isn't working. I was really hoping that Beretta being so fine-boned was a fluke. I like everything else about her. Since Belle Starr is her 3/4ths sister...and the same thing popped up....it's not a fluke...it's a bad nick. So I guess if I want any more babies out of either of my LBM mares...I'll be looking for a different stallion.

Producing foals with a lack of bone is fairly startling. If anything...I would say that some of our horses are bit on the heavy-boned side. The stallion has excellent legs. Both of my mares have refined legs...but plenty of substance. So while I considered a lot of factors that may or may not work crossing the bloodlines...light-bones wasn't a foreseeable problem.

I don't plan on breeding either of my mares this coming year though (too damn busy!!), so I have plenty of time to research stallions for a 2013 breeding for one of them.

Guessing Game

2011-12-25T19:49:00.003-07:00

Sooooo....

I know there are a few of you, who have been long time readers....

Does anyone recognize either of these two ugly ducklings?...

A little hint...they share the same sire!

(giggles in anticipation)

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T09:45:00.004-07:00

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my lovely blogger friends. I hope the Holidays are treating everyone well.

It's a low-key Christmas around here....

Kinda figure Santa has given me everything I wanted....A new patio, new lighting in the kitchen...and a new barn. It's kinda hard to top that. ;-)

The weather has been holding up remarkably well. Outside of a couple of skiffs of snow....we have been dry and are holding steady with temperatures in the 40*'s most days. Doesn't do much to promote the 'Christmas Spirit', but sure makes doing chores and riding a lot more enjoyable. :-)

It's hard not to get a bit of the Holiday Spirit feeling when you enter the pavillon at the Bellagio though. It's one of my favorite places to visit during the NFR because every year is a different theme. I thought this year's was outstanding...
The penguins were singing carols, flapping their wings and moving their heads. The little guys in front were skating in circles. Pretty cute stuff.

The star of Bethlehem hung high above...
Known for it's water shows, this year the Bellagio brought some of it inside...
The water jets pulsated with the music (above) and formed perfect arches over the walkway (below)...
Like almost everyone else, I had to touch the water stream to see if it was 'real' or encased in a tube. LOL...It was real.

I think the Polar Bears were my favorite though...

All of the bears were made with carnations. It was almost like being at the Rose Bowl Parade and seeing the floats up close and personal.

Wishing all of you the very best holiday. Much Love!! BEC

Almost Done

2011-12-20T22:13:00.002-07:00

The guys are almost finished on the new loafing/tack shed...

By tomorrow, they will have the sliding door finished and the two dutch doors mounted and that pretty much wraps up the construction around here.

The electrician made it back and finished up the inside of the house. The insulation guy is coming tomorrow to blow insulation in the walls of the house. I need to have a welder come and change some gates around on the permanent corrals so both of the new stalls are assessable. And that's it.

*I* still have a few things to do...haul in base to level the two stalls and build up around the outside edges of the barn....

And start moving everything into the new tack and feed room. There is work to be done on the inside of that yet, but it will all have to wait until next summer. We are calling it quits on the construction around here for awhile.

Hallalujah!

The NFR Shopping Experience

2011-12-13T16:35:00.001-07:00

There's no doubt, the shopping at the NFR is beyond compare. This year, L and I made it to 3 of the major shopping spots...I think there are 2 or 3 that we didn't have time to get to. We didn't get to The Sands and the NRS store in the MGM Grand was closed by the time we got there. I'm sure there are more...

Shopping spot #1 was The Convention Center - Which is the original cowboy Christmas shopping spot and by far the largest (of the ones we went to). It's also the most expensive. Downright outrageous, if you ask me. We spent 4 hours at the CC before becoming overwhelmed by the glitz and glitter. We only saw about 1/2 of the booths, but I doubt we missed much because so many booths carry the exact same stuff...bling, bling and more bling. I know I have a serious case of OLS (Oh Look, Shiny)...but it was too much for even me. I was fairly bling blind by the time we got out of there....maybe it was sticker shock?

A word of advise...If you ever go to the CC...EAT before you go (we learned that last year)...and take a bottle of water or something to drink WITH you. A bottle of water (or soda) will cost you almost $3 in there. The food prices are outrageous, isn't that great tasting and finding a place to sit and eat is difficult.

Other than that...you will see a lot of cool stuff and there are contestants placed all around who are there to sign autographs. Last year we went on the last day and I got killer deals on a lot of items. This year, we went earlier in the week and there were no deals to be had yet.

I did find these to-die for custom hats...and I need you guys to tell me which one you like better...The feather...
This one I like exactly like it is...the tan feather on the brown hat. It's a nod to my Native heritage and when I lived in North Dakota, my nickname was One Feather. LOL

Or the crossed-pistols...
I'm sure Mikey is squeeeing (LOL)...but the pink would narrow the accompanying wardrobe a bit to much, so if I pick this one, I would have the pistols done in shades of gray and silver on the black hat. Maybe not as flashy, but could be worn with a wider variety of colors.

It's a tough decision because I like both. The crossed pistols are kind of becoming my 'thing' because my up and coming generation of horses' names all start with Fast Draw...so it's kind of fitting.

L insisted she loved this hat on me...

And I think it's cute...but it's not a contender, even on a different colored hat or with different colored threads.

As much as I would l.o.v.e. not to have to choose one or the other (between the feather or the pistols), these custom hats run a little over $600 apiece. Normally I would not even consider such an option, but I have such a hard time getting a hat to stick on my head when I am running barrels, even with them practically stapled to my head. I need ONE hat that Moon cannot rip off of my head when he kicks in the afterburners. Apparently I have an oddly shaped, peanut head because it's nearly impossible to find a factory hat that is small enough and stays tight after I have it broke in.

Shopping spot #2 was at The South Point Casino and Equestrian Center. This was a much smaller shopping spot. We got through it in just a couple of hours and we thoroughly perused each booth and visited with many of the vendors and artists. I picked up this blingy, black and yellow headstall for Frosty for a mere $80 (it was originally $120, was on sale for $100 and the vendor gave me another 40% off)...

Most of the vendors said they had, had a good week in sales so far, but I think that was because they were willing to deal. If you asked what they could do for you, they knocked some off of the marked prices without looking disgruntled or getting snippy.

Shopping spot #3 was the Mandalay Bay Casino. This was a good sized place to shop...yet not so huge you couldn't make your way through before becoming exhausted. Again...the vendors were willing to deal on prices a bit and many had 'specials' going on. I pretty much dropped my cabbage right off the bat on this alligator headstall and breastcollar set...

It was one of the nicest red and black sets that I saw the whole time...and since red and black is the colors for my husband's motorcycle club I figured I better get it. I am thinking Spooks will look awesome in this set...but it may look good on Shooter as well in years to come. Red is kind of tough. I don't usually do it on my horses...but yet, on the right color of horse...it can look really sharp. I didn't get a screaming deal on it, the set cost $300 with tax, but I saved about $50. I was trying to haggle the guy down a little bit more, but the newly crowned WPRA World Champion Breakaway Roper kept butting in trying to get the guy to show her a saddle. I thought about punching her in the mouth, she was just a twig of a thing..but she looked kinda tough...like dried up jerky tough. I opted to take the discount the guy was offering and keep my dignity and my fur jacket intact. ;-) LOL

Other than a few little Christmas items, that was it for my shopping this year. I pretty much refuse to give $75-100 for a pair of jeans or $40-60 for one of those blingy, slinky shirts (besides they are o.u.t. at the rodeos next year... I guess to many adult women couldn't figure out how to keep their damn boobs inside their clothes when wearing them, so the WPRA said, Everyone is back to collar and cuff shirts).

I looked at some Boulet boots, but no one had the pair I liked in my size. Checked out some saddles...wasn't really interested in anything without being able to try them on Moon. Not interested in new pads...I'll be going with Ed Wright's Ortho pad when I decided to buy another one. Looked at Iconoclass boots for the horses, but can get a better deal on them locally...so that was pretty much it.

Oh, I guess I can't forget my 'Vegas' shoes...

Marshall Rousso's in the Monte Carlo has the best fitting high heels I have ever found...at least ones within my budget, so I am obligated to buy a pair every time we are there. This year I snapped up the zebra print ones, but they didn't go with the dress I wore on Friday night like I had hoped they would, so I had to buy the sparkly, black ones...Ooohhh Darn! (can't you just hear the disappointment in my voice? LOL...NOT!!!)

Viva Las Vegas!

2011-12-05T23:35:00.004-07:00

It's that time of year again...

Our 'now' traditional, annual trip to Las Vegas for a couple of nights of National Finals Rodeo and several days of total fun and relaxation.

I think my husband NEEDS a few days!! Poor guy has had shit coming at him from all directions here lately.

This year we invited my barrel racing buddy, L and her husband to go along. It's been a few years since they have gone and I am excited to have a fellow enthusiast along.

I haven't had any luck posting on the blog from my iphone...I can read everyone's blogs and post to FB, but blogger just won't recognize me when I try to log in from the phone. So I will talk to all of you in a few days. Stay warm everyone...seems like it is cold everywhere right now.

NFR Favorites

2011-12-03T11:18:00.005-07:00

Every year the NFR gets a little more exciting to me. Having a Pro-Barrel Racer right next door gives me a lot closer look into the world than I have ever had before and I am getting a first hand look at what these girl's lives are like. It has taken a long time to start to get to know my neighbor because she is gone most of the time. But I followed her progress this year and was so excited for her when she made it all the way up to the #16 spot in the standings by mid-summer....

Bessert

Unfortunately by the time the final tally was done, she had fallen back to the #19 spot and that is where she ended up for the year. She's been home for a while now and I have gotten to know her well enough to know that she is a super sweet person and a lot of fun to visit with. It's been a little frustrating for me because she has invited me to go ride with her (she lives next door) and here I was struggling to get my horses back to the point where I think her experience and expertise would really help. I do pay attention when she is riding and have gleaned some valuable info.

She has been traveling partners with and is the one who set up the Sue Smith clinic last winter that I attended. Of course, after meeting Sue and getting a first hand look at what a great horsewoman she is, she became another favorite and I root for her...
My brother knew Sue from years ago and told me she was a heckava hand, which is why I decided to go to her clinic.

Britney Fleck is another traveling partner of my neighbor...
Of course, I just love the story about Fleck's black horse...just a horse she picked up for extra credit for a colt training class she was taking in college. Obviously the girl has an eye for a good horse. And then there is the fact that she is the first North Dakota barrel racer to ever qualify for the NFR. I didn't realize that. There are some pretty good ND barrel racers, so that kind of surprised me.

Both Sue and Britney have had tough luck the first 2 go's this year. Knocked barrels both nights. Sue would have won the 2nd round if that barrel hadn't gone down.

No one gets to the NFR if they aren't the best, so I hope these two get the kinks worked out and win some money.

I have a deep respect for Sherry Cervi...
Stringray doesn't look like any of the other barrel horses, but she can obviously scat...since she holds the arena record at the Thomas and Mack. When Cervi first started making the NFR, a lot of people (me included) thought it had a lot to do with the fact she had the monetary means to purchase horses that could get her there. But she has proven to be a top hand and an exceptional horsewoman. If I could be like any of the barrel racers that are winning...she is the one I would chose to be. Money can't buy the ability this woman has proven to have and I LOVE the fact that she is running and winning on horses that her family has raised.

Of course, I have to root for my home state cowgirl, Lisa Lockhart...
I am just in love with Louie (An Okie With Cash). What a neat horse. Lisa is another cowgirl who is a top hand. I have never gotten to meet Lisa in person, but the rest of my family is good friends with the Lockhart family (and I know some of them). I don't know anything about Lisa's family, but I know she married into a family that raised many good horses over the decades and have always been top rodeo hands. Lisa worked damn hard to get where she is and deserves every bit of recognition she gets. She made every horse she runs and I love how quiet and smoothly she rides.

It's not all barrel racers I'm rooting for this year. Blake Knowles is back at the NFR and steer wrestling off of a horse that is near and dear to my heart...Shesa Fabulous...
Shesa Fabulous is a product of Brian Fulton's breeding program, from way back in the beginning, when he was partnered with Billy Meyers. Sired by Frenchman's Fabulous, the mare is the first foal out of the only daughter of my most beloved dun mare, Diala Dandy Dolly.

Yuppers, Shesa Fabulous is Moon's 'niece'. Every time I watch this mare back in the box...I see her mother (Shesa Dandy Command) and granddam (Diala Dandy Dolly). My beloved old Woofer and her daughter, Shesa Dandy Command have/had a very distinct (and recognizable to me) alertness and carriage about their head and neck...and Shesa Fabulous is a chip off of the old block. Dandy (Shesa Dandy Command) has proved to be one of Brian Fulton's top producing mares and is still listed in Brian's sale catalogs as his 'favorite cowhorse'. I am so very happy that the mare went to someone who was able to prove her value. It's an important lesson to the naysayers of 'backyard breeders'...it's not that we aren't producing horses that have all the ability of the professionally bred horses, it's just getting them into the hands of the right people. Name recognition is the only advantage the pros have over the rest of us. So it's darned exciting to see the fruits of our love and labor prove what we already knew in our heart.

Feeling A Bit Crabby

2011-12-01T12:49:00.002-07:00

I don't know if it is because the weather changed or if I am just sore and tired from working horses...

But I have been feeling rather crabby lately.

The electrician has never come back to finish my lighting.

The insulation guy finally showed up yesterday...but only because I got bitchy with my contractor. After being put off since last week...and waiting around the day the insulator was supposed to show up and never did. I got pissed and told my contractor I would not have let them tear down my ceiling and start that project if I had known that his sub-contractors were not going to be here to finish the damn job.

I was also irked that my contractor...despite me telling him NOT to...decided to apply sealer to the new patio...the day before Thanksgiving. It stunk to high heaven in the house and actually made me sick to my stomach. I had told him that *I* would apply the sealer myself after Thanksgiving to avoid that happening...and to save on hours paid out.

The hubby and I have talked quite a bit and I know that I am just tired of having people around all the time. After all, these guys have been working on projects for almost 4 months. It's getting expensive and I think the guys are just getting used to that regular paycheck. MH is getting tired or writing those checks.

Right now, the guys are working on a shelter that attaches to the permanent corrals and I told them that would be the last project for a while...like until next spring or summer. I swear I saw panic in their eyes. I don't know if they thought this was the land of never-ending projects and endless money or what, but we have exceeded what we intended on spending and both the hubs and I are done. He wants to stop paying out and I want my lonely existence back.

I feel bad for feeling irritated with the guys. They have done such a wonderful job on everything they have accomplished for us. They are great guys and we actually count them as friends...so I am kind of trying to avoid them because I do not want my irrational irritation to spill over. We have more things we want done...eventually...and I don't want to use anyone but these guys. So I'm just venting a bit online as a release.

I will say this...I spent a lot of time backing them off of over-building my 'loafing shed'...and they still insisted on building the damn thing as if I was keeping buffalo...or elephants. Holy Hell...Two x Twelve stringers? Six x six posts? Chriminy! I WILL be able to keep buffalo or elephants in this thing. I put the serious ki-bosh on their elaborate framing and lining of the inside though. I about crapped when I saw what they were designing.

NO, NO, NO!!!

I showed them how pole barns are lined to make them equine safe and they tried to tell me that was not acceptable. I blew up a little bit!

I may not know the exact way to build a barn, but I damn sure know what is acceptable...and ECONOMICAL...when it comes to making them horse safe. I flat out told them if they did not follow the plan the way I wanted it...I wasn't paying for the work or the materials.

I HATE having to get bitchy!

One thing I always liked about these guys is that they worked at a slow, steady pace. No ramming and jamming or short-cuts. Everything they have done is high-quality work and built to last. It's a rare and endearing quality to find in people these days. This last week I have noticed a much slower pace and an almost determined will to 'help' me with small, odd projects I am perfectly able to do on my own.

Thanks guys...but No Thanks...please just get my shelter built. I don't need help strapping my hay tarp down..or bringing firewood to the house or loading or unloading materials I have for some small projects.

In my heart, I know that they are just really good guys and just being helpful and gentlemanly. That's the kind of guys they are. Seriously!

I just want my shelter built and be able to putter around at my own pace again...alone! The excitement of getting the projects I envisioned built is over and I want my hermit status back. If I did not so desperately need the shelter for the horses, I would have put that project off, but it was a necessity and unfortunate that it ended up being the last project. Totally MY BAD for not being able to decide exactly what I wanted to do.

Thanks for letting me vent a little! I feel better now.

P.S. I would like to have my lighting finished and the rest of the insulation blown in the walls though.

Sailing Along

2011-11-30T09:20:00.002-07:00

Geez Louise...

It's pretty amazing what can be accomplished when a person stops fighting their head and just gets back to business.

The big bay has progressed to being saddled and was pretty good about it. I may not have been thrilled with the trainer overdoing the round-pen riding, but it's pretty obvious how much he put into the ground-work on this horse...

My goal is to just keep messing with Jet-saddling and ponying him, until I get the time to start going over to Bub's and then I will have someone pony me while I am on the horse. Jet is a full QH on paper, but he is all TB in his brain and way of thinking. He needs forward movement and lots of it.

Bugs fell right back into work mode, so we moved to the round pen for some sacking and I even jumped on and rode him around bareback. Now, I'm riding him in full accouterments...

My round pen is 40', but Bugs struggles to work in such a small area, I'm going to take a chance and move to riding him outside in my riding area by the house. We have lots of work to do to get this little guy limbered up.

Frosty and Moon got some bitting work. This is a prime example of how Frosty likes to travel...
The horse carries his neck very stiffly and it's like he sucks it back into himself (think turtle)...It just totally locks him down in the front. It took a lot of playing with the rein length and I actually had to over-bit him to get him to stop doing that...
Normally I do not bit a horse so that they have to travel with their nose behind the vertical to get release, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I do not leave them this way for more than a couple of circles. It's too much and if over-done can create it's own set of problems. The day after bitting, Frosty was being plumb silly, which is his way of saying, "I'm a bit sore' and sure enough he was a smidge tender...But he was tender over his whole topline and not just over his loin, so he is finally starting to use all of his back. We just worked on stretching and extending the walk on the line and we warmed right out of the muscle tenderness. Yesterday I saddled him and went for a ride in the field next door. Good lord getting this horse to just walk out is hard work (Frosty thinks it is hard work too), but we made a couple of rounds and worked on a lot of softening. Afterwards, I noticed he seemed pretty tender on his hind fetlocks and they felt a bit warm. Lots of changes going on in this horse's body and I think I'm going to be dealing with lots of different sore spots until all the kinks are worked out.

Moon acted like he had about the same amount and kind of soreness as Frosty after being bitted up the day before. When I started to work him in small circles, I noticed a hint of a hitch in his giddy-up on the left hind...so instead, we went for a brisk hand-walk for about 15 minutes. Here I was not wanting to fatigue or strain those muscles and when I turned him out, he blasted off, did some jump, buck, farts and hauled butt to the other end of the pasture where the other horses were. Alrighty then! He's back to being ridden as well and we worked on the same thing as I did with Frosty, except for Moon, it's about making him stay engaged in the hind-end. He did pretty good and only fell out a couple of times. I'm not sure what to think about Moon, he seems so docile. Obviously, since we are not competing or training hard, I have backed way off his grain ration and with 24 hour turn-out I don't expect his energy level to be real high, but it feels weird...him being so quiet, after getting used to him having loads of energy like he did this last summer, but he is moving better and the soreness he experienced before is not manifesting again, so I'll take it and be happy.

Vacation Is Over

2011-11-27T11:01:00.001-07:00

So the ponies got a bit of a vacation, as did I...at least from doing anything but throwing hay and filling water.

I think we all need that once in a while.

I've had a lot of stuff rolling through my head these past few months and a little down-time has given me time to assess, absorb and re-calculate.

I could say that I felt rather dumb for having to have other people re-tell me things I already know...but I'm over all that. Mulling on mistakes doesn't leave much room to think about how to make it right.

Life with horses is what it is. Every step is a journey and sometimes you end up at a dead-end.

But hey...my reverse works rather well and if I have to back all the way up to the starting line...so be it.

I'm back to groundwork.

After Moon made his charge through the electric fence, I almost brought him up and left Beretta out (nobody else thinks it worth charging through electricity to bother her)...but he was still very sore through his loin and I decided that right then HE was the one who needed room to roam the most. It took about a week for him to lose all of that soreness and start traveling normal again. I left him alone for another week just for good measure.

In the meantime, I decided it was as good a time as any to start working with Miss Beretta. We started formal longing lessons, worked on bend/give, move off of pressure and I started playing around with little exercises to teach her how to step up and drive off of her inside hind leg.

Interestingly enough, just messing around with her, I started to work some things out in my mind, so I have been carrying over what I started doing with Beretta to the other horses. I kept thinking that all of this seemed very familiar and one day it dawned on me that this was all stuff I worked with Moon on years ago when I started bringing him back after he pulled his stifle muscles.

Most of it is exercises that Mrs Mom gave me.

Working in-hand gives me an opportunity to see how a horse carries himself, where their feet fall and any stiffness/lack of suppleness.

Since I don't have anyone around on a daily basis to spot for me, I wanted to get a feel for exactly where everyone was..cause boy, oh boy...does that carry over when you are riding.

This is what I have found;

Beretta-Is very supple to the right. She has no problem relaxing and stretching through her neck. Subsequently she can really reach up underneath herself with her right hind foot and is using her whole back. Little sister can walk on! Her transition up to a trot and back down to a walk are smooth. Going to the left it's like watching a different horse. She is much bracier in the neck, stiff in her left shoulder and her transitions are erratic. Her left circles involve a lot of flat and bulging spots.

Jet-Is erratic and overreactive. He's supple bodied on both sides, but has a tendency to react with his body and forgets about his feet.

Bugs-Is stiff bodied and clunky moving. But he is a tubby little turd, so that's pretty much what I expected. He also has a tendency to overreact at the walk and downward transition and wants to whip around and face up. His transitions up are nice and smooth and he will just trot forever in relaxed frame, but because he is so chubby and stiff he lacks bend.

Frosty-Is stiff and bracy through the neck. He doesn't lift his shoulders at all, which leads to short strides with his front legs. Because he strides so deep behind, he keeps pushing himself into a jog. It's really interesting to watch him because now that I realize what I'm looking at I understand why he rides the way he does.

Moon-Is stiff bodied, lacks impulsion from behind and does the same thing with his shoulder that he does when I am riding him. Going to the left, he over-bends and pushes his shoulder out. To the right, he is stiff in the shoulder and keeps fading into the circle. I also notice he is dragging his left hind toe occasionally. That is the side he jammed his back and was so sore on. I can't help but still think that there might be something physical going on, but I also remembered that when I started bringing Moon back after he pulled his stifle muscles (years ago) that he had the same tendencies. (Thank goodness for the blog so I could go back and read up on all that.)

What I'm going through with Moon is similar to what In2Paints is going through with her mare. I've always said that Moon was built just a hair off of being ideal in the back legs. He's got a high hock and is a bit straight. This is not an uncommon conformation characteristic to see in barrel horses as it lends itself to speed. The downside is, one or two degrees to much and you have a horse that is prone to letting his hind legs get too far behind them which leads to back, stifle and hock issues, particularly when they are lazy like Moon is.

LMAO...I knew all of this, particularly about Moon, but I got so wrapped up in his injury that I got tunnel vision and stopped doing all of the stuff I normally did to strengthen his stifle and make him use his whole back.

It has been really interesting to watch how the other horses move around the line and see how they use their entire topline (even if it is sporatic/erratic)...Moon and Frosty do not do that, so it was definitely a training issue.

Whewww! I finally feel like I am back in my element again and have very specific goals to work on with each horse.

Something Bub told me really resonated with me. I made the comment that maybe I should just stick to training because I couldn't seem to figure out how to compete very well. I always feel like I am starting over. He just laughed and told me, 'You gotta start from the beginning every. single. day.' At the time, I understood what he was saying, but until I started over again, I didn't really get it. But more on that another time.

Slacker

2011-11-22T22:08:00.002-07:00

Sorry...have been meaning to do a post for days and by the time I get sat down to write...I'm tired and am lacking for words. Not to mention that Megan's cat has decided *I* must have nothing else to do in the evening except give him cuddle time and he is not above plopping down ON the laptop to get his cuddling...He is in fact, at this very moment nestled deep in my lap while I precariously balance the laptop on my knees and try to type without disturbing him overly much.
Deuce is not much of a purrer...at best it is barely discernible, but Lordy can he snore. LOL

The squirrel says Hi...

And hopefully everyone in the good ole U.S.A. gets the chance to look like this after feasting on Thanksgiving Day...

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

And to my Canadian Friends...I'm a month late in wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving. Sorry!

I'll be back to pony postings after the Holiday! ;-)

Getting There

2011-11-16T16:45:00.005-07:00

I had promised pictures of the kitchen repair to some friends on FB yesterday...but things didn't come together quite as much as I had hoped...

Isn't that the way it always is with repair/remodel work?

Please forgive the messes...we are still in the middle of finishing up! :-/

Earlier this summer I flooded the ceiling due to a broken swamp cooler line and that caused a significant amount of damage. All the work I did to repair the ceiling from a previous leak...ruined...and then some.

The guys ended up having to take down all of this...

It doesn't look like that much from this angle, but it's about an 8'x16' section.

The really unfortunate part is that the insulation in the ceiling is the blown-in type, so the entire kitchen was tented off for 4 days while the guys pulled sheetrock and loose insulation to make sure there wasn't any moldy parts left. To get from one end of the house to the other, we had to go out the kitchen door, across the patio and in through the sliding door. For FOUR DAYS!! I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but by the time Monday rolled around...I was damn ready for that tent to be down and to be able to use my kitchen again.
Maybe I should have asked them if they could do a cathedral ceiling. LOL

The last few days have been a flurry of activity. The guys were busy putting back up the new sheetrock and the electrician was making all of the changes to the lights I have been dreaming about....
The only good thing about ruining the ceiling? It made it much easier for the electrician to check all the wiring out...And booyyyy...were there some doozies of DIY screw-ups. It's a wonder this house is still standing. The people who remodeled the house (2-owners ago) did some lovely things like tie into existing wire, patch wires together with duck tape and pushed old fixture outlets up into the ceiling and left them 'live'. Holy Hell!!!

So yea, I glad we ended up finding all of that.

In the kitchen itself there was a single bar of track light. It actually didn't light anything very much. :( The island was too dark as was the stove if I didn't turn on the light over the sink, as well as both stove lights. So out with the track light (although I kinda liked the fixture itself) and I had recessed light put in. One over the bar section of the counter, 2 centered over the stove and one in front of the refrigerator (which you can't really see in this picture)...
That white strip and hole in the ceiling is where the old track light was. The two holes in the ceiling to the right are where the pendulums will hang over the island.

Here's a broader view (that includes all of the messes). The fixture in the foreground is newly positioned to be centered over the table...
The hole just to the right of the new dining room fixture is where the old track light was that was supposed to light the dining room and the 'sitting room' off to the right. It was atrocious! As like the other track light, it didn't really light anything.

Soooo...old light holes need to be repaired and the new sheetrock taped, textured and painted. That's my job...it might be like this for a bit yet. At least until snow flies. ;-)

A close-up of the new dining room fixture...
It's an antiqued rusty look...that I had hell finding because I was trying to match the ceiling fan I bought last year...that I just loved!...And that did not work! I was devastated because my whole lighting fixture theme was around that light/fan that was supposed to go here...
The fan/light I had picked out was a rusty look with raised stars on it, the trim looked like rope and the fan blades had horse-shoes on them. It was definitely a statement piece, but hung to low for this ceiling. I was soooo sad to have to return it and unfortunately they do not make a flush mount in the same style...or anything even resembling it. (boo hoo)).

The guys just finished up the new built-in bookcases today and I love, Love, LOVE them. When I get the finish coat on them they will match the kitchen cabinets. I always knew that wall needed a bookcase to help balance out the fireplace...but I don't think I realized just how perfect it would look.

I dunno...For some reason the whole kitchen/dining/sitting room feels HUGE now. It's amazing what good lighting can do...and we don't even have all of them in yet.

Finishing For The Year

2011-11-13T22:26:00.003-07:00

Things are pretty much done on the outside of the house for this year. We finally got some great contractors...What a blessing these guys have been. The house has been fitted with new windows, screen doors, sliding door, all new trim and finally gutters all the way around. The coupe' de gra' was the completion of my long desired patio and pergola....

Thirty-eight feet of pure outdoor heaven. The guys personally cut each one of these fancy ends on the overhang and I don't think a laser cutting machine would have gotten them any more perfect...

Enclosing the hot tub was my honey's idea and I think it turned out just right...
Next year I will transplant my trumpet vines and maybe a climbing rose bush or two around this and maybe extend a flower bed along the length of the patio. 'Course ya know I'll be putting up hanging baskets of flowers down the length of it. LOL.

There are still some things to be done...the electrician is coming back and has a full day's work to finish up all my kitchen lighting and hopefully will get the exterior lights and plug-ins put in on the patio. I'm excited to get some twinkle lights up and maybe even a Christmas tree out here. (giggles) I have waited all my life to have a patio like this. I am soooo excited and happy with it. Thank you Honey for trusting me and letting me have my way, yet again. Your the best!

The guys also stripped off the old shingles on my shed, laid a good quality water barrier down and did a really nice job putting new shingles on...
Nice not to have to look at the bare spots on the roof anymore or have to pick up all the shingle pieces out of the yard every time the wind blew.

Next year, the house itself will get reshingled and the walls stuccoed. Then it will be done. Finite'. No more remodel, fixer-upper, mile long 'honey do' lists. What on ever will I do with all that time on my hands? LMAO

Ohhh...And I doubt anyone remembers that starving cat that jumped in My Honey's car at the stop sign?

Now here's a good reason to label posts...I don't remember when that was. A year ago maybe? I stopped to talk to MH at the stop sign up the road and this poor starving cat came out of the ditch. With almost no hesitation, he jumped in the car window and velcroed himself to MH and the rest was history.

Well...Charlie Cat, aka-Charles In Charge, aka-the shop cat...
Is a far cry from the poor starved creature that decided he was coming home with us...someone...anyone. For a long time we kind of assumed that the poor cat had been dumped by someone unable or unwilling to keep him anymore, but considering we have discovered that he has a penchant for sleeping in vehicles and has no qualms about someone driving off with him(several friends have had to return him), I think it is safer to assume that he mistakenly took a ride and found himself getting out of someone's vehicle in a strange neighborhood. He is such a cool cat, I am sure someone mourned the loss of him for quite some time, but we have no way of knowing where the heck he came from, so he is stuck with us now. He has however decided that maybe 'house cat' status is for him, so he hangs out on the patio now, looking longingly in the sliding glass door. If he ever finds the cat doors on the other side of the house...my guess is that he will move right in. LOL

Oh Yea...It's Easy...NOT

2011-11-12T21:19:00.005-07:00

Geez...I have been looking for my camera cord for the last couple of days so I could download pics and as I started to type this post...It dawned on me...I can just load them off the memory chip.

Duuhhhh!!!

Okay to avoid picture overload...

This was supposed to be a quick and easy project...

Putting up a hot fence to separate my one big pasture into two, so that I could leave Beretta out most of the time this winter. My plan was to give her and Spooks about 4-1/2 acres to themselves and just move a portable shelter and a hay feeder into their pasture so they can just hang out...

Okay, so putting up the fence was not that complicated or time consuming...It's mostly just getting everything you need gathered up that is complicated and time consuming. I had the poly-cord...but none of the accouterments. Several trips to town, several changes of my mind later and it was finally ready to assemble. The 'V' you see in this picture, I put in so I could get through the existing barbed-wire fence to fill tanks more easily. I know where I want permanent gates put in on this fence line, but am hemming and hawwing over whether I want to put them in now or wait until next spring when this entire fenceline is going to be replaced with either white vinyl or a post and rail. Knowing I am going to be changing the fence to something more decorative and will probably always need a hot wire on it to protect it, changed other things too...

Originally, I had intended to just by a solar powered charger, but lucky for me the guy at the store explained that if we had a power source within 50 feet of the fence, the electric one was probably a better long-term choice...and it was waaaayyyy cheaper...
Had the electrician not already been scheduled to be at the house to work on other stuff, I probably would have gone with the solar powered one just to get the damn fence up already! But it all worked out.

Everybody keeps telling us we need to plant trees along that fenceline I was just talking about and ordinarily I would agree that since that is the direction the winds are most prevalent from, that would be the thing to do, but I do dearly love my view to the south...
Everything went very well for the first few hours. Moon is the only horse I have that has been exposed to a hot fence, so I stuck pretty close and kept an eye on everyone. You just never know if a horse is going to run away like a lunatic or if they are going to be so surprised that they jump over the fence. I watched Moon in particular because if anyone was going to try that fence...it was going to be him.

Now, Moon does not like Beretta. For no other reason than he is a bully and he knows she will run from him. So I wanted to be close in case Moon decided to test the fence. I had already turned Spooks and Beretta out and then brought Moon and Frosty from the gate around the corner so they could get a good look at the new fenceline. They watched me build it, but still, I wanted them to clearly see where that new fence was.

Lord knows....I have moved my horses around so much that I have learned...It's usually not turning horses out in strange environments (if done like it should be done-in daylight, etc, etc) that they get hurt...it's when you change their existing living arrangements that causes wrecks. So anyway, Moon and Frosty stand there and look at the situation and then proceed to start mowing grass. I stood there for a bit watching to make sure Moon was not going to charge Beretta who was fairly close by on the other side. Moon thought about it and took a few steps toward her, but I watched him size up that fence and I'm pretty sure he was searching his memory banks about that white string-like fence. He must have found the last memory he had of getting zapped because he backed off.

So I go get Jet and Bugs, who are spazzing out because everyone else is out and they are not. Everyone had been up for a few days while I pondered this fence situation and they were eager to get out of their pens. I did the same thing with them, but instead of going to eating...those two go to playing...running, bucking, jumping, squealing...oh they were having a ball.

I got worried in a hurry. I had seriously debated between using the usual hot tape (easy) poles vs. pounding in steel posts. In the end, my laziness kicked in and I decided I would see if the little sticks would work. On the other horses, the stakes come just to the bottom of their chests. Yes, they could easily jump them, but I didn't think anyone would unless they did it the first time they got zapped and that was their reaction. However, watching the big bay and the short sorrel play, I realized that the big bay would step over that fence pretty darn easy if he so chose.

Holding my breath for that first little bit, I watched for several hours as everyone except Frosty got too close to the fence and got tagged. The fence seemed to have just the right amount of bite to it because everyone's reaction was to jump, run a few steps and then whip around and face the fence. Bugs actually came right back up to it and stuck his nose on it. Wow! Did he get back in a hurry. LOL

Anyway, to make a long story, longer....several hours later, I started hauling hay out to the pasture for the big geldings. My intention was to leave them out, because they had all figured the fence out and done all of their running and playing. I was going to catch Beretta and put her up for the night. I was not going to take a chance of Moon doing exactly what that jack-ass did.

As the other horses headed the other way toward the hay piles, Moon starts heading toward the fenceline. Spooks and Beretta were heading up toward the fenceline from the other direction as well. Moon ran up to the fence and got tagged. He jumped back, looked at the fence, moved down 20-30 feet and touched it again. He jumped back again. The 3rd time, that dirty SOB hit the fence...He charged it and pressed into it until he felt the stakes give. His sole intention was to go after Beretta and he did not give a damn that he had to shock the crap out of himself to do so.

I was already on the run when I saw him touch the fence the first time. I KNEW that that snake had planned. I had left my big whip by the fence just in case, scooped it up as I ducked through the fences and I charged at Moon screaming and cracking the whip.

Beretta, being no dummy, was long gone. The second she saw him coming, she hauled butt to the far side of the pasture. Fence or no fence...little girl is a self-preservationist and I have a feeling it will be many years before she grows up enough to handle much of a herd environment. That seems to be the norm for babies that are injured early in life. They learn the best way to protect themselves is to just l.e.a.v.e.

I'm pretty sure Moon was slightly disoriented from the shocking he gave himself or I might not have made it in front of him before he got the chance to take off after her, but as it was, I got in front of him and beat the ever-loving crap out of whatever I could hit. He decided turning around and retreating was in his best interest.

Has anyone ever had a horse that was so totally oblivious to pain they would do that to themselves just to get to another horse? I mean outside of a stallion that was trying to get to a mare in heat? Moon is just not right in the head. You guys think I'm joking when I call him the Spawn of Satan...and I am not. I swear that horse is 1/2 Evil. And no, he is not proud cut...he has no love for mares. He is just one mean SOB and if he can get the run on someone...he's gonna do it. I made a major mistake with Moon when he was a youngster...he was always a bully and a sneaky little shit, waiting until the perfect moment to bite or kick me. I should have put his nasty little butt in with some big horses that would have tuned him right up and taught him some manners but I was worried he would get hurt because he never seemed to back down...and now...this is what I am left with. Never again will I raise a foal that does not have a good nanny horse to teach them their place in life. Either they will learn or they will die I guess, cause dealing with a horse that grows up to be like Moon is hell on earth.

So, needless to say, I will be pounding metal posts in to string a 2nd line higher, which I wanted to avoid because this is a temporary fenceline. (heavy sigh) Next spring the whole thing will be torn out so the field can be replanted.

But even then turning Moon out while Beretta is out, even though she is in her own pasture, is not going to happen again. Moon just bought himself a very long winter. Beretta is going to get to enjoy living in a big space this winter and I am not going to worry about having to keep an eye on the Evil Dun Horse as he hunts for a way to get through the fence. I think that is the saddest thing about losing Turk. Turk kept Moon in line because Turk was the boss horse and he brooked no BS from Moon. Now there is no one to put Moon in his place and he is just making himself miserable trying to figure out ways to torture everyone else. I do feel sorry for the horse in that aspect...It must be hell to go through life feeling like you need to be miserable to everyone around you.

It's All About The Lift

2011-11-07T14:00:00.006-07:00

I suppose introductions are in order...my 'farrier' is not a farrier by trade. At least he does not advertise as such, so the only way to get into him is through a referral (which came by way of the vet I consulted with on Turk's foot last year). He was gracious enough to take on my other horses. What he actually is by trade is a reining horse trainer....(link)Poplin Performance Horses. So to answer your questions...he does do lessons and clinics. He's actually in Italy as we speak doing clinics and judging shows. When he gets back, I'm going to start lessons with him. He had already agreed to take me on as a client next spring because I am hoping to get Shooter and Beretta into the show ring and between Bub and his wife, Becky...they coach a well-rounded spectrum of classes. Not are they only highly accomplished trainers/coaches...they are just super nice people to be around.

Bub says the problem I have with Moon is that I have let him start traveling in the exact manner I knew he was pre-disposed to travel in due to his conformational tendency...he wants to drag his hock behind him and dump on the front-end....creating a broken topline. He would prefer not to break in the loin at all. I need to get Moon gathered up again and engaged both front and back.

The problem with Frosty is due to his conformation...he really uses his back-end and doesn't think he needs to use his front-end. Breaking in the loin is very easy for him so that is ALL he does to control his speed or stop.

MY problem is, is that I confused breaking in the loin with getting lift on the front end and that is not the case at all. Compare these two horses...

Both show the ultimate form of lift...which is the root to collection.

Ah-HAH!!!

I had always heard that a collected horse was like an accordian...when you squeeze the horse together...they become collected. Somewhere along the line, I failed to really grasp that for it to be correct, the horse has to lift up in the front-end. I always knew there was something missing...if I had a horse like Moon who is not a naturally good stopper, I worked on getting them light in the front (lift)...but when it came to having horses that are natural stoppers, like Frosty, Spooks, Rip...and many of the other horses we have...I always struggled to get them to have the same round feeling Moon does when he stops properly. The 'natural' stoppers I have always felt flat.

Bub says that is because I was letting them break too far back (in the LS joint) and not asking for the lift from the entire latissimous dorsi...which is what reining horse people have to do to get a horse to slide the way they do. That lift actually comes from about 5-6 inches forward of the LS joint.

I always wondered how they got those horses withers to stay so high in a slide. It isn't just breaking in the loin and making them drop their head...their withers really are raised up, just like the dressage horse above. THAT is what allows them to keep running along on their front feet, which keeps the momentum going and lengthens the slide. The lowered head also encourages the momentum. The back end simply comes up under them and stops moving. There is NOT a huge break in the loin to begin with, it increases as the horse moves through the slide. The slider shoes removes traction and Whhhheeeeeee!...they slide.

That one little missing link in my knowledge and I kind of feel like one of the great mysteries of the world has been solved.

Bub gave me ONE exercise to work on while he is in Italy. I was directed to turn Moon out and not touch him for at least 10 days. Bub wants all of the soreness and crabby attitude gone before we begin again. When Bub gave me this one exercise, I felt a little bit of a let-down...just one? (sigh...patience is not a virtue that I got whacked very hard with) But Bub says first I need to get Frosty freed up a bit and start stretching his ribcage, latissimous dorsi and discourage him from breaking so hard in the loin. Soft, transitional stops only.

I guess I got two exercises because besides working on that specific exercise, I need to work on getting Frosty to really extend at the long-trot. That means getting him to drop his head and really drive forward. No more of this half-assed, head-up looking around bull-crap I've been doing with him. He's gonna have to start working...this is the frame we are going for...

Hahaha-I picked a big-butted horse QH because there is no way Frosty is ever going to look like those Appendix things that have taken over the HUS classes.

As for the exercise Bub gave me...this is all it is...(link)Haunches In. Wiki's explanation and the foot-fall tracks to the side seemed to best describe what Bub told me to work on. He said, most importantly...do not ask for anything more than for the inside hind foot (the one closest to the fence) to reach up and track exactly in line with the outside front foot (the one away from the fence). If you aren't sure, have someone watch you to make sure you are not over-doing it.

I hope that wasn't a disappointment after all that he told me beforehand. It hardly seems like that would do much, but Bub swears it is one of the most beneficial exercises he uses to begin to teach a horse to use his abdominal muscles and start to build the entire latissimous dorsi, as well as keep his more finished horses strong. I do start lessons in a week or so, so there will be more to come.

Saggy Belly Syndrome

2011-11-06T09:11:00.001-07:00

(Frosty from this spring)

Walking over to Frosty, the farrier laid his hand on Frosty's hip and asks me, 'What has happened to this horse's hip muscles?'

This is definitely something I have noticed for about the last month on Frosty. His gargantuan butt is still gargantuan, through the stifle and buttock area at least, but the points of his croup have started to protrude. In all honesty, I think the horse is almost thin...

Any yet, I have been mostly unsuccessful at getting him to pull that belly up.

The thinner he has gotten, the more sunken he appears across the topline and the bigger his belly seems. Getting Frosty to use his entire back has not been successful and I know this. It has taken most of this year to get his system right (due to IR) and even though his riding has been way more consistent that ever before, to really get to the point where I don't think he is going to blow up and dump my butt at the slightest inclination has been a bit sketchy. Some days I am supremely confident that I am willing to take whatever he is going to dish out and some days I am more cautious and don't push him. At this point, Frosty knows his barrel pattern well and is loping it comfortably, but the fact that he is so slow-footed has kept me from starting to exhibition/compete on him. I don't get the confident feeling he really knows where his feet are.

Considering what the farrier has just laid down, I realize that while Moon has completely disengaged using his stifle and hocks, Frosty is really conformationally strong in this area and he is over-using his stifle and hocks.

The farrier says, 'Exactly! What do you notice about how this horse travels in the front?'

Oohh-ooohhh...I know this one...Thanks to Megan riding Frosty for me at one of the barrel racings, one thing I really noticed and was surprised about, was the fact that Frosty had a lot of knee action. It's not something I noticed when I am riding him myself because he is an amazingly smooth horse and I remember wondering while Megan was riding him, how he could seem so smooth to ride and yet he obviously was not traveling like he should. I just cannot seem to get the 'lift' in the front end that I know needs to be there to allow him to really extend his front leg.

It was early in the summer when I noticed that Frosty seemed to be built more and more downhill,
(Pictured in June-I know he is not standing square, but still pretty obvious how much his front-end has dropped)
I thought that was kind of odd that I hadn't noticed that being so obvious about him before. I looked at some older pictures of him and when he was a 6y/o, he was NOT build obviously downhilll like he was appearing to be now. Huh...He was obviously dropping in the front-end and I suspected something was going on with his feet. That is why I took him to the farrier to have shoes put on. Frosty's a 9 y/o (oh my, the years do fly) and has never had shoes. He has good quality feet, but they are (were) very plattered out.

Sure enough...by the time Frosty got his 2nd set of shoes, he had come up over an inch at the wither. The farrier didn't do anything except put a size 2 shoe on him and rasp off all of the outer wall flare, which was pretty unilaterally flared all the way around and Frosty's heels had started to spread excessively. Getting Frosty to stand up properly has made it even more obvious his complete lack of muscling behind his withers and he has these residual 'fat' deposits there.

I told the farrier I have had a hard time getting Frosty to lift his back and really use it and since I cannot seem to get his belly to come off, I thought that is what keeps pulling his back down.

Stepping to Frosty's shoulder, the farrier held up his first two fingers, bent over, placed them in the center of Frosty's girth area and pressed up. The area behind Frosty's wither rose and filled out. The farrier slowly slid his fingers back along the center of Frosty's belly and as he did, Frosty's entire topline lifted, by the time the farrier reached Frosty's belly button, Frosty's entire top line was full and rounded. Frosty's saggy belly was gone and he actually had a straight line from his elbow to his stifle. The farrier held Frosty in this position, turned to look at us and asked us, 'Now tell me, how is it I can get this horse to lift and use every muscle in his back and belly properly with two fingers and people find it near impossible to accomplish the same thing when riding and with every gadget imaginable at their disposal?'

None of us had an answer, but for the first time in months, I felt like I was back in my element. THIS is the stuff I live for. My farrier's enthusiasm for sharing knowledge and his ability to break it down doesn't make a person feel dumb for not knowing (like his apprentices) or not remembering (like me).

I know I had a spark in my eye again after the farrier's little tutorial. This stuff wasn't anything I didn't know or understand. I just got lost in that huge void between using what I think of as the basics and wanting to be a competitor. Apparently, I have quite the disconnect going on myself.

Not quite finished yet...

The Hock Bone Is Connected To The Shoulder Bone

2011-11-05T09:48:00.000-06:00

Without waiting for a reply, my farrier tells me to hold on and walks out of the barn. A few minutes later, he comes back with two pieces of twine. He tells me to come over to Moon's shoulder hands me the end of one and says, 'Watch this.' He pokes along Moon's shoulder blade starting from the top and working his way down. Right about at the point of the shoulder, Moon flinches away. Significantly. 'There', He says, 'Hold your piece of twine right there.'

He calls over one of his assistants, crosses to Moon's other side and pokes along his shoulder blade until he finds the sore point on the other side (almost equal with the side I am on, but just a bit higher) and tells the kid to hold his piece of twine there. The farrier takes the two pieces of twine, crosses them over Moon's back. While he is standing behind Moon, he asks if we agree that horses are animals that work on diagonals. We all agree. The farrier starts talking, 'So if the principle is that horse's work on diagonals, that means his right hock is connected to his left front leg and his left hock is connected to his right front leg, is that correct? (He didn't really wait for answers) So when we ask a horse to drive from his left hock, we expect to see a corresponding extension in the right front and visa versa. (My mind is racing trying to visualize and the farrier continues) Problems arise when the hock does one of two things, either it tries to take on the entire work load or it totally stops driving, either way, the hock has become disengaged from the front end. And where do you think the most pressure lands when the front and rear ends become disconnected?

The farrier paused for a minute, giving us all a chance to think about that and then slowly lowered the strings in his hands down until they were in line with each of Moon's hocks. The strings crossed over Moon's back and the X laid directly over his loins. Specifically a bit to the left side of center, which is the muscle that Moon always gets sore on first.

Holy Crap!

Straightening back up, the farrier tells me, 'I'm going to tell you, you have one thing going on in this horse (Moon) and a the opposite going on in the other horse (Frosty), but they result in the same thing happening to their backs, shoulders and neck...they are over-using their loin to compensate for not using their entire back. That is what is causing the loin soreness and until you get them connected again, you are going to keep having this issue. Because they are only using part of the muscle and it is over-worked.'

Dropping the strings, the farrier walked around to where I was standing by Moon and had the others come over. He asked us to step back and tell us what was wrong with Moon's musculature. I pointed at the bottom of Moon's neck and told him that Moon was starting to get that big muscle on the bottom again. This was something that I had noticed over these last few weeks. Moon always has had a tendency to build muscle on the bottom of his neck and at the beginning of this year, I had worked really hard to build up the correct muscling in his entire topline. As you can see from the picture of him in my header, by May, he looked pretty good.

The farrier said, 'Exactly. The top of this horse's neck is mush and he has an over-developed muscle on the bottom. THAT corresponds with his atrophied muscles over his shoulders and behind his withers. So we KNOW that he is not using the front half of his back. His loin is doing all the work...and let me tell you...Both of these horses have an over-developed loin. That muscle stretches all the way to the front of the horse and ties in under the tricep (he's talking about the latissamous dorsi) and on both of these horses, it looks like their loin is one muscle and there is a different one from there forward."

Walking to the rear of Moon, he asks his apprentices if they think Moon is a good stopper. Both of them kind of gave me a sideways glance (I'm sure they didn't want to say something that might hurt my feelings) and the girl tries to be politically correct by saying, 'Based on his conformation, I would say he is not a really good stopper.' The boy nods in agreement. My farrier turns to me and asks, 'Is he a good stopper?' I quell my inner smart-ass that wants to say, Well, not right now! and tell them that in fact Moon is a very good stopper. Of course, I have to have my timing just right, but Yea, the horse can stick it.

I swear the farrier could read my mind, because he commented, 'Not right now he can't. He has totally disengaged his hocks...because he is conformationally built to do that and I bet right now he walks around and drags those hocks out behind him. (It was really a rhetorical question, but I nodded in agreement) When the tension in his loin gets to be to much, he wants to start stopping and stands stretched out...right? He's stressed!'

Now, I'm pretty sure I didn't tell my farrier that is exactly what Moon is doing. Maybe I mentioned it, but I doubt I was that specific. I am hearing Ed Wright's voice tell me that Moon was doing his 'thing' because of stress. Did I misunderstand what kind of stress Ed meant?

"Now,' says the farrier, 'About that foot... (Foot? What foot? My mind is absorbing all of the stuff he has just talked about) That horse is loading on the outside of his left front foot because he walks crooked. His whole body is canted to the right and if you don't keep correcting him, he will just make a big old circle to the right, Right?'

Uuuhhh...This time I am dumbfounded. I know I never mentioned that.

I nodded in agreement. That particular characteristic has been a big source of irritation to me these last couple of years with Moon. I have no idea when exactly I first noticed that Moon insisted on fading to the right...but it has been a consistent pattern regardless of what I am doing with him. Earlier this year, I had pretty much fixed it because I spent a lot of time working on straightening Moon and gaining balanced collection. He got so much better. It was when he got hurt that we started to digress and the roller coaster ride got more and more pronounced.

Done with talking about Moon, my farrier walked over to Frosty and began his tutorial on him...

To be continued...

Back To Basics

2011-11-04T10:48:00.000-06:00

So I had such an interesting conversation with my farrier yesterday that I just have to share...

I have finally conceded defeat, for the moment, on trying to figure out the root of Moon's problem and asked the farrier to just pull his shoes. Moon is so tight, tense and unhappy that I told him that I was simply going to resort to the old-fashioned belief of turning him out and forgetting about him for awhile.

Whether it's the saddle or not, his back is so tight and sore that continuing to try to work though things just seems futile and unnecessarily cruel.

I mentioned to the farrier what the vet said about tenderness in his right hind and asked him to check it. The farrier found nothing. I also mentioned that we had noticed he was loading the outside medial on his left front and asked him to double check that. The farrier acknowledged that Moon was in fact loading to the outside of his left front.

I must have looked pretty defeated because the farrier asked me what the heck was going on and I filled him in on the last few weeks of frustration and that I was just going to turn Moon out for awhile and start from scratch when I felt that his soreness and sour attitude had dissipated.

The farrier says, 'Good! Looks like you both need a break. But I want to show you something and then when you start bringing this horse back, you don't keep doing the same thing I can tell you have been doing.'

I was a bit taken back. Of course the nature reaction is to defend oneself and I told him, "I haven't been doing anything lately. I quit doing anything except to just ride and try to keep Moon's back loosened up, but it keeps getting worse."

Farrier: "I know. I can tell by how atrophied his musculature has gotten over the last 3 months." Then he says, "You do realize there is nothing physically wrong with this horse in the back-end don't you?"

My eyes kind of narrowed...because if nothing else, I have figured out there is nothing actually physically wrong with Moon from the hip back. I couldn't help but sound a bit snarky, when I replied, "Yea...it took a couple thousand dollars, but I think we have safely eliminated any problems in the hips, stifle, hocks or fetlocks."

My farrier gets a big old grin on his face, like a kid you have just unexpectedly handed a piece of candy to and I get the distinct feeling he has been waiting for this moment. I'm already cringing...so I throw out, "Well, the vet thinks it might be that the saddle I am using is pressing on his kidneys." I knew it was a dumb thing to say before the words were even out of my mouth. My self-defense mechanism kicked in and I wanted to assure my farrier that I was not a complete moron, but you know how sometimes you say things hoping they make you sound like you have a grip on the situation...when you are actually at a total loss?

And I got what I expected...the very same look Ed Wright gave me a couple of times not just to long ago...That look that says,

Wow, You are dumber than dirt!

UUggghhh...Lately I have felt dumber than dirt. I have never had a horse with such a pronounced and mysterious ailment that I can't fix. I am the queen of fixing things. *I* am usually the one that people bring their horses to or ask for advice from about particular things that are going on. *I* am the one who can spot the problem and pin point the cause. *I* am the one who figures out teeth, feet, diet, training and conditioning problems and fixes them.

When the hell did *I* become the one who was dumber than dirt?

My farrier walks over to Frosty and asks me if I use the same saddle on him. I replied, No. He takes his hand and presses on Frosty's loin and Frosty sinks away from the pressure. The farrier looks at me and asks me if I still think it's the saddle pressing on Moon's kidneys. I'm a little speechless because I have never noticed Frosty suffering from back pain.

Oh, but my farrier was only getting warmed up...

To be continued...

Round And Round We Go

2011-11-01T10:44:00.003-06:00

...Where we stop?

Hopefully with a sound horse again!

Things have just gotten worse and worse with Moon's back issue.

Something is not right and I was at a total loss.

So I made an appointment with the new vet that I have been using to have a thorough exam and consult about all of the 'issues'.

It was mostly prompted by walking out yesterday morning and noticing that Moon's ears were 'dropped'. His head was canted and he kept shaking it.

I wiped Moon's ears and didn't feel anything. So I trimmed the long hair and peered down in there with a pen light. Couldn't see anything. So I took a soft cloth and wiped down in his ear as far as I could reach (gently!) and didn't get anything that looked out of the ordinary. As a last resort, I massaged the base of his ears and on the left side it felt like moisture squishing around down in there. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how he would have gotten moisture down in there, so I figured having the vet check it out was in order.

I have been wanting to talk to her about the back issues, have him flex tested again and discuss ulcer medications anyway, so I guess it was actually good timing.

Of course, by this morning, Moon's ears were up again and even though he seems a bit sensitive to touch around the base, the squishy feeling is gone and he has stopped shaking his head. The vet decided it wasn't worth sedating him and thought perhaps it was just a wax nodule. Apparently massaging the base of Moon's ears helped it dissipate.

So on to the stuff that has been making me pull my freaking hair out...

The back issue!!!

I gave her a run-down of the symptoms and Moon's personality.

She agreed that if Moon does not have a full-blown ulcer, he at least is probably prone to gastric distress. Thankfully, today was not a day that Moon decided to suffer in silence. He was in a full-blown 'mood'. She had the receptionist call around to see what it would cost to scope him, but at a whopping $400...we both decided it was probably most effective to just start feeding him a better ulcer preventative supplement. I had been looking into the Gastroguard/Ulcergaurd...but at over a $1,000 a month, she thought without the scope to back up confirming an actual ulcer...it may be a futile and excessively expensive measure. She recommended Platinum Balance. Personally, I was looking to switch to U-Guard. I kinda like the fact you can buy that in powder, liquid or pellet form. Any opinions on one vs. the other from anyone?

One thing I did learn...whole oats is not good to feed to horses with ulcers. Rolled oats = fine. Whole (even crimped is not great) is irritating. So it's off to return my newly purchased stock of whole oats in favor of rolled oats.

Since Moon's blood work and urinalysis had come back normal, we talked about kidney stones. Kidney stones are not common in this area, nor any of the areas I have kept Moon. Adding in the fact that I seldom feed alfalfa...she said the chances of that are highly unlikely.

Bladder stones would be more likely. However, we pretty much ruled that out because Moon urinates normally and I have never seen any sort of discoloration or dark (bloody) streaks or streams even at the end of his urination.

We moved on to movement and palpation. Moon is obviously sore over his kidney/loin area...on both sides now. Not just his left side. His tail is raised and he is in obvious discomfort in the hindquarter. The vet flex tested both hind legs/stifles and came up with only one issue. His right hind foot. She applied the hoof testers and found just enough tenderness in the sole around his toe area to cause a reaction. Moon does have a bit of thrush that I had already noticed and have been treating for a few days.

There was no tenderness in his other feet, so it's a possibility he stepped on a rock...or has an abscess brewing. Even though it has only been 4 weeks since he was re-shod, his feet have grown significantly and he is due to be re-set, so I made that appointment with my farrier. I'm actually going to have his shoes pulled...I think! We will say what the farrier says.

I will say...I was not as happy with my shoeing jobs the last time I was over there as I have been in the past. I didn't think they looked as good on any of the horses as they usually do, but there was a lot going on, a lot of people popping in to visit and the farrier has a new kid in training. The kid didn't trim the feet or set the shoes...just pulled the shoes and then clenched the nails. However, I think the farrier was disjointed doing his job, trying to juggle trimming and setting two horses at once and having constant disruptions. From now on, I am only going to take one horse at a time and I won't go in the evening again. It's much quieter around his place when I go over at noon. But I suspect that is the reason I noticed (and the vet pointed out) that Moon was loading to the outside on his left front.

Neither of the minor feet issues would account for the excessive soreness over Moon's loin though. Personally, I think I can feel two vertebra that feel out of position just before the break in the loin, but the vet said she is not good with that, so she didn't give an opinion...guess I'll have the chiro out again. But even with that, the tightness/pain over Moon's loin seems excessive.

So finally we come to the question of saddle fit. Of course, I tell the vet that I finally have a little saddle that really seems to fit Moon...however...I mentioned to her that it does have tiny little skirts and it had crossed my mind, due to my mom and step-dad's teachings that could cause undo pressure on the spine. I pull the saddle out of the trailer and set it on Moon.

Wanna know what?

The vet came to the same conclusion that even though this saddle fits Moon very well...the tree ends at the exact point where Moon's back pain starts...right over his kidneys. We think the tree may actually be too short and applying a consistent pressure to the kidney area....

Which, when I started putting the time-line and everything together...

Fits! (or doesn't depending on how you look at it)

This was not the saddle I was riding the night that Moon jammed his back, but I switched to using it shortly after, to help free up his back and every since then things have just gotten worse and worse, with a lot of unexplained back pain issues.

Suddenly...all kinds of things started clicking in my head. Usually when I ride in the desert, I use the Cactus All-Around because it's so comfortable for long rides. Moon is never sore after a long desert ride. But when I am around the place and practicing, I always use the little barrel saddle so I get the right 'feel' and after a couple of days, that is when I start noticing Moon getting more and more irritated and sore.

God, I feel dumb now!

It's not a given that this is the problem...I'm going to have to go back to riding my Cactus saddle around the place and see...

But hopefully...we have finally figured it out (fingers crossed). All this time....with having so many people looking and checking things out...It never dawned on any of us that it was the back of the saddle causing problems. Holy Crap!!!

Getting The Right Fit

2011-10-27T10:40:00.002-06:00

Obviously no clinic is complete without at least one question being asked about saddle fit, pads, bits...etc, etc...

Barrel racers are particularly keen on these issues as our tack is absolutely vital. In the race against the clock, the fact is, the wrong or ill-fitting tack can cost us. Oh yea...and then there is the consideration of the horse. ;-)

Early in the year, I was running Moon in that beautiful new Cactus All-Around that I bought in January. That saddle fits all of my horses just wonderfully and I love riding it. However, once Moon started getting some speed up, I felt like he was starting to set me out the back. So I tried that Sharon Camarillo I had picked up cheap. I felt good in that saddle, but even with the new Tod Sloan pad I bought, it was just a bit to snug over Moon's shoulders, so I switched to using this saddle...
I had bought this saddle specifically for Moon because it has an 8 inch gullet. I ran him in it a couple of times...but to be honest, I was hoping to find something that looked...uummm...not so cheap or old looking.

Yes, I am a bit vain. I like a nice, quality looking saddle and this isn't exactly it.

However...

As cheap as it looks, it DOES fit Moon...and it DOES fit me...

So there ya go. This is what I ride/run him in.

I was surprised when Ed was checking saddle fits on everyone's horses that he said he thought it was a nice little saddle. In fact it is made much more correct than many of the fancy saddles that the other girls were riding.

Here is why...Look at where the D ring is placed on the majority of new barrel saddles...

Trace a line from the front of the D ring up to the swell. See how the front of the D ring is actually in front of the swell? Ed says no wonder so many saddles slide back or cause fit issues. The D ring needs to sit directly above where your girth lays. If you don't want your saddle to move backward (or possibly cause sores due to rubbing), the D needs to sit farther back and should be placed so that the front of it is toward the back of the swell, like my el cheapo saddle does...
*I* like a back cinch on my saddles because I think it helps keep the back of the saddle down on the horse's back and lessens movement. This saddle did not come with flank straps (which is common for barrel saddles, particularly these round skirted ones.), so I bought some and put them on myself. I liked this style simply because they are easily removed if I want to use them on a different saddle.

I was never been a fan of the round skirt barrel saddles, but I will say, I agree with Ed that the most important thing is freeing up those hips and these saddles with little tiny skirts do that and they are lighter. I don't think my el cheapo saddle will be going anywhere soon. LOL

The pad I am using on Moon in these photos is too big. Ed does not want anything hitting a horse's hips. Saddle or pad. Normally, I use the 3/4th's of an inch thick, 30X28 Tod Sloan barrel pad I bought earlier this year. That fits under this saddle perfectly and completely frees up Moon's hips. I had just started using the thicker pad because I wanted extra padding on Moon's back because of the way he was acting.

I know we have all had this discussion before...Orthopedic pads!

Even though, I have a couple of saddles that fit Moon across the shoulders, I still have a bit of a problem with them sliding back. So after much reading/research, I went ahead and spent a heafty chunk on this Sharon Camarillo ortho pad...
It is supposed to fill in that area behind the shoulders, which is apparently a really common issue on barrel horses, to support the saddle and prevent the saddle from wanting to slide back to that dip. The problem is and probably always has been, that these speed horses we are breeding for have a wide shoulder and a narrower ribcage. So when you have a saddle that is wide enough to lay properly over the shoulder, there is always going to be that 'dip' behind the shoulder that the saddle wants to slide into. Always make sure the saddle is wide enough for the shoulders and then find the right kind of Ortho pad to support that area to prevent the saddle from wanting to slide back.

Let me tell you...the SC pad was a total waste of money! Not only is there a huge 'cut' over the wither area of the pad, which allows it to sag when you are riding it, the pads are h.u.g.e and overlay the shoulder!!!

Compare that pad to the pad that Ed makes...
Luckily one of the girls had an Ed Wright Ortho pad, because Ed does not actively try to sell any of his 'stuff'. He doesn't bring anything with him. I tried this pad on Moon and the little built up area fits perfectly behind the shoulder and fills in that gap. My saddle didn't slide even without the cinches being done up.

(Sigh)...That was an expensive lesson.

Anyone interested in a Sharon Camarillo Ortho pad? I'll make you a deal. ;-)

Starting Beretta

2011-10-25T08:39:00.000-06:00

Well, now that I have waited until almost winter...LOL...I decided it was time to get back to working with the horses. I have been riding Moon and Frosty, so they are starting to come back and look a bit more fit again.

I decided that I might as well start working with Beretta...
Now, Beretta is as gentle as they come for her age. Megan has already been on her bareback and has ponied her from the corrals to the pasture. That's been a while ago though.

Baby girl got her first formal lesson in ponying and she was a rockstar. We went down the road and over to the field I ride in and made a few rounds. Not a single problem.

Now to start the sacking and saddling process!

That 'Thing' He Does

2011-10-24T11:15:00.002-06:00

So as you guys know, every since Moon jammed his back in July, he's kind of been doing this 'thing'. He doesn't do it so much at home, but then we mostly ride out in the open. I have gotten increasingly careful about the amount of tight work we do. To be honest, I completely laid off the horse for 2 weeks and since then riding has been hit or miss. i knew Moon was slowly losing his peak condition, but since we haven't been running much, knew that he was still in good enough shape to make a run here and there.

Moon isn't a stationary horse. He moves a lot all on his own, so I don't ever worry too much about his muscles getting tight like say, Frosty and Spooks do if they aren't ridden regularly. He isn't prone to getting fat and even though he has a chronic cough, which is only slightly mitigated by supplements that are supposed to help, he maintains good wind.

When we get to barrel racings is when I really notice Moon starting to do his 'thing'. Which is stopping and acting like he needs to pee. Although he never stretches out. When he does have to pee, he does stretch out and has no problems taking a healthy pee. He is also carrying his tail higher than normal. Moon does have a high tailset, so even when his is fine, his tail does not lay down between his buttocks. When he starts to get uncomfortable acting, he really raises it up and has actually started wringing it on occasion.

Every since I found those beans, I have been cleaning him every month and specifically checking for beans. I've gotten a bit of soft stuff out, but nothing hard again. Moon always has been rather nasty in his sheath. I actually clean that every few days cause he gets those chunks of goop and grunge. I'm really lucky because Moon likes to be cleaned. He's very accommodating.

When we got to the clinic, I figured Moon would do his thing right off the bat because of the length of the haul, but he didn't show any discomfort until Sunday afternoon.

I have eliminated every possible physical thing I could think of-chiro, flex tests, electro/myopulse treatments and finally a blood workup and urinalysis. Nothing is showing up of a physical nature and I was starting to think that this was possibly a mental thing. I've talked with several of my friends about this and had them watch Moon, but I think they think I am over-reacting. Moon certainly does not look like a nervous horse.

When Moon started doing his thing at the clinic, I pointed it out to Ed and told him the history of what I have done to 'fix' Moon. He watched for a minute and told me exactly what I was starting to conclude myself...Moon is exceptionally nervous. Ed could see no physical reason for Moon's discomfort, except that he internalizes his nerves and that is causing his loin to tighten up. That's when the physical discomfort comes in. It's like when a person gets so stressed that their stomach knots up and pretty soon their lower back starts hurting.

I have always said that Moon is a difficult horse to read (for most people...apparently not for Ed). He acts so calm and laid back. Few people ever believe, until they see him run, that he is capable of the explosive speeds and turns he has. From what I have read, this is characteristic of the Lady Bugs Moon horses. As race horses they were very quiet and almost dead-head acting until that gate popped and they blew everyone away.

This explains so much about Moon's behavior and the last couple of runs we have had, where he was difficult at the gate. The poor horse is just a bundle of nerves and so uncertain about how things are going to go.

I wasn't completely oblivious to the problem. I've never made a gate-sour horse in my life. So I know if one of my horses starts having gate problems, there is a reason. Now, I know I've had this conversation before...But there is a HUGE difference between a horse that is gate-sour and one that is just amped to the gills and has difficulty getting moving in the right direction. The differences are sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious.

For me with Moon, it's obvious. When Moon is amped and ready to go, he may get to going sideways or even kind of suck back a little bit, but I can feel the energy in him. The last time I ran him, he sucked and ducked every direction but toward the gate and I felt resistance, not energy. He was definitely saying...Uuhhh-UH! I am not going in there!

That is when I decided I would drive to hell and back if I had to to get to an Ed Wright clinic this year. This roller-coaster ride of up and down for Moon and I HAS to come to an end or I need to just stop trying to run him. I am not about to ruin a good horse because I cannot seem to figure out what I need to do next. Moon has made it very clear, he is done with the BS too. For his sake, it's time to get it right and keep it going in the right direction.

Blogger Meet-Up

2011-10-23T22:02:00.000-06:00

What really frustrated me the most at the Ed Wright clinic was the fact that my mind was trying to do what Ed was telling me to do and my body...

Well, I wasn't incredibly successful at getting my body to respond.

Muscle memory just took over!

But before I go there, I got to tell you that one of our fellow bloggers lives right close to Moriarty and we got to meet up...

(Yea buddy, I got some sun. Sure didn't think I would have needed sunscreen this late in the year.)

On Saturday evening, Fantastyk Voyage came up to have supper with me. It's a good thing too, cause after I had my little 'cry' and finished taking care of horses, I met my hubby at the only bar in Moriarty and was fixing to get waist-deep in some Crown and Coke. LOL.

Heeeyyyy...Ed did tell me he thought I needed to show up about 1/2 drunk the next day so I loosened up a bit. I was just following his instructions. ;-)

We had an awesome visit that evening. She came out to the clinic the next afternoon (and thanks to her, there are some nice pictures) and then on Sunday evening I went to her place for some homemade pizza and got to meet her darling crew. As I have noticed before when meeting fellow bloggers that I've been reading for awhile, it's like catching up with an old friend vs. meeting someone for the first time.

My hubby was doing his own thing. He had met up with some of his club brothers in Albuquerque and spent the day riding with them. I think everyone thought we were a bit of an odd couple because we drove that far and then I did my thing while the hubby did his. But that is how we roll.

Time Out...I Got Photos Of My Filly

2011-10-22T13:07:00.006-06:00

Thanks to my niece for getting some photos of my new girlie.

Here she is as a newborn...

Whew...those legs were a little scary looking at first...

Looking at those pictures of the filly as a newborn is like deja vu'. The new filly looks exactly like her mother did when she was born.

Didn't take long for the little girl to fill out and straighten up though...

The two photos above must have been when she was just a couple weeks old. Beauty must be milking like a Jersey cow. That's awesome for a maiden mare.

The photos below are of her at one month old...

I haven't decided on a name for her yet...kinda leaning toward Kimber (another good gun name ;-)...but I hear her nickname around the place is 'Goat'. She's always climbing on the hay bale and her mother. Sometimes jumping from the hay bale onto her mother. Oiy Vey! She's quite the character.

I'm thinking this little girl is going to be a keeper. ;-) Hahahaha...I say that about all of them. Since we raise babies for ourselves and not for resale...They are all keepers.

We Are A Sorry Lot

2011-10-20T10:55:00.000-06:00

I have known for a long time that Ed Wright has a reputation for being a tough SOB to ride under. Knowing that he is a horseman's horseman...I understand why. People like him have a love and appreciation for the horse that is far beyond most people's comprehension. They understand horses on a level that the vast majority of us can only hope to touch on. They have a highly developed sense of timing and a feel for every movement the horse is making and how what they are doing in one stride is going to translate into what they will do the next stride.

I'm not going to even try to say that his clinic was easy for me.

It was quite possibly one of the hardest, most frustrating experiences I have ever had.

Ed was hard on me. With good reason mind you.

He may not have thought much of Moon when he first saw him, but once he saw him on the barrel pattern, he made sure to tell me 'That horse has moves!'.

(grins)...Moon makes people say that a lot. LOL

That was pretty much the only compliment I got from Ed that weekend. After that, he started chewing my butt.

Ed didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know, I have just become unsure of how to proceed. Advice from friends is invaluable. I have a couple of local friends, who's advice and opinions I respect, but things have not been working lately and I don't think continuing on the path I was, is going to get any better. I needed the assistance of someone like Ed, who sees everything and knows exactly how to break it down, correct it and build from there. I know that my biggest problem with Moon is that I do one of two things with him...

I either get to the barrel and completely quit riding him. Leaving poor Moon to fend for himself in the turns...

OR...

I get much too heavy and over-ride the hell out of the poor horse.

I think what made Ed so mad at me is the fact that I do not ride Frosty that way. He asked me why I ride the buckskin horse so light and quiet then switch to Moon and become this Dragon Queen?

Honestly, I KNOW I have a problem when it comes to Moon. I didn't really realize I was getting so harsh with him though.

It seemed to me that every time I opened my mouth to explain to Ed the problems I have been having...I said something that made him look at me like I was the stupidest person on the planet. It's really tough to have someone you respect so much look at you that way.

Now I know in this 'pat everyone on the back and tell them they are great' society that we have become...most people do not appreciate someone giving them the harsh reality...

But I did not drive 500+ miles to have someone pat me on the head and tell me I'm wonderful. I specifically wanted to be told what I am doing wrong and what I can do to make myself better so that Moon finally gets the opportunity to just go do his job.

I guess no matter how prepared you are for a tough critic...it's still a bitter pill to swallow. By the end of the first day, I was so frustrated with MYSELF that I went into my trailer, sat down and cried. Ed's clinics are not only physically difficult, they can be mentally difficult as well.

Ed's no dummy. He knew. The next morning he told me I needed to quit being so hard on myself. Rather than becoming frustrated because I did not improve 120% in one day, I needed to recognize that I had improved 50% in one day. And then he told me something that made me laugh...because it is so true...

We barrel racers are a sorry lot. We are the only speed competitors out there who think we can get a horse to go fast by sitting on our butts, kicking and pulling at the same time.

He showed us two pictures to show us how he expects a barrel racer to ride...
The WH cover pic above is one of the pics that Ed showed us. The picture below is one I pulled off the internet because here is a guy riding in a curb and using a romel rein. He is still up and over his horse's first 2 ribs and both hands are up, in the correct position and he is riding his horse f.o.r.e.w.a.r.d...

Ed's philosophy about turning a barrel is unique. Where most of us think of running to the barrel, slowing down and getting a horse to turn, Ed thinks of turning a barrel as...Run to it, gather up, shorten stride and run around it.

Just like a GOOD working cowhorse rider does when they are circling a cow at the end of their run.

Pretty interesting huh?

I didn't really get what he was trying to explain to us until I have had time to think about it and really absorb what he was trying to get me to do at the clinic. Change is difficult if you really don't have a clear picture of what you want to change to. Now that I have this mental picture in my mind and a more coherent mindset of what I need to be achieving in the turn, it's just going to take work to bring it all together.

Ed crammed a lot of information into a very short time, so there is more to come...

Bad Horse Mommy

2011-10-19T22:25:00.003-06:00

Uggghhhh...

Having Ed Wright tell me within an hour or so of meeting him that I was a 'bad horse mommy' was fairly demoralizing.

Ed had me pull Frosty's saddle and showed me an incredibly easy...but highly effective stretch to ease Frosty's knotted sides.

Now, Ed called this a ligament and even told me the name and l didn't get the name wrote down...so I forgot it. I looked in my Equine Anatomy book and do not see a ligament in that region. What I did find was multiple layers of muscle. The outermost muscle and the one we are all most familiar with is the Latissimus Dorsi, which is #15 on this schematic...

(Photos will enlarge if you click on them)

On the front end the latissimus dorsi ties in under the Long Head of the Triceps Brachii, #17 on this schematic.

Under the latissimus dorsi lies the Serratus Ventralis Thoracis, #10 on this schematic...

This is actually the muscle that I think Ed is talking about becoming knotted and causing problems. See how it runs down the side of the horse toward the cinch area and flares over the ribs? The spot just behind the elbow, in the girth area is where Ed had me digging around and what caused Frosty to flinch.

I'm not trying to second guess what Ed said, but since none of the anatomy pics I looked at showed any 'ligament' in that area, I'm guessing he may have just likened it to a ligament since when it is knotted the way Frosty's was, that is what it felt like. Once we got Frosty stretched out, that ropey, rubbery band feeling under my fingers disappeared and felt smooth and elastic.

Here's the thing...

You know all those horses that people say are 'cinchy'?...or 'cold-backed'?...and they never seem to come out of it?

Oh sure....when we work with them every day, they get better, but give them a few days off and it's like we are starting all over again, with the humpy, jumpy, cinchy behaviors...

Ed says most of the time those problems can be attributed to a horse that gets tight and knotted up in this area.

It took 5 or 6 stretches on each side to get Frosty to relax, but the improvement was noticeable and immediate. I re-saddled him and rode right off. Ed told me I should never saddle this horse without doing these stretches and making sure Frosty was relaxed through that area. He said it would probably take 30-45 days for Frosty to get completely over memory of the discomfort/pain he previously associated with being cinched up, but as long as I kept up with it, I shouldn't have the saddling/cold-backed issues with Frosty that I had become so accustomed to having to deal with.

So without further adieu, this is the stretch...

Sorry for the poor quality of these photos. I didn't realize I was standing in such a bad spot for the lighting.

Simply pick your horse's front leg up, slide your arm under the leg and lift it up as high as you can and hold it for up to 30 seconds.

(Moon does not have issues with that area, but I figured this was a pretty good stretch to add to the program for everyone.)

CAUTION!!!!!....

#1) DO NOT attempt this with your horse TIED! If a horse is uncomfortable with having their leg lifted that high, due to pain or just because you've never done it before...They will pull back.

#2) DO NOT attempt to hold them if they resist and pull back. Simply let go of the leg as smoothly as possible and start again.

To start, ask the horse to pick up his front leg. Bring the leg forward, keeping the knee bent. Gently raise the front leg until you can slide your arm under the upper leg and lift the leg as high as the horse's body allows. Keeping the knee bent, you can support the lower leg by holding the toe with your other hand.

Keeping your body close to the horse will help to keep his front leg in proper alignment. DO NOT pull the leg away from the horse's body. Work on lifting the leg as high as the horse's body will allow, but it may take several stretches to get them to release all the way.

Remember...it's a stretching exercise. The point is not to force the horse, the point is to encourage the muscles to stretch out and become more supple. It may take multiple stretches, but the relief (if there is a problem) is almost immediate.

On day 2 Frosty was 50% better before I stretched him and 90% better after his stretches. On day 3 he was 90% better before I stretched him and a 100% relaxed after I stretched him. Talk about a much more relaxed and happy pony to saddle and ride off on. If I learned nothing else that weekend...that was worth the drive!

But really, that was just the tip of the iceburg...Ed was just getting warmed up with me!

To Be Continued...

First Impressions

2011-10-17T21:08:00.004-06:00

Wow...made it back from the Ed Wright barrel racing clinic in Moriarty, NM....

It was brutal!

Thank you all so much for you kind condolences about Turk. Believe me, that made leaving the next day a tough decision.

Thanks to my local friends for stepping in and helping take care of the rest of the crew. I didn't exactly find how Turk injured himself in the pasture, so I did not want horses out there. That meant keeping the remaining 4 head in individual big pens while we were gone. I was scrambling to move panels around, water tanks around and get everyone situated. Instead of having one person check on everyone once a day, I needed someone to stop and feed twice a day. Between everyone that volunteered, we got that covered.

The plan was to leave early Thursday morning and drive all the way to Moriarty in one day. Me hauling horses and the husband on his bike.

That didn't happen. I didn't get left until almost noon on Thursday. Too many things slipped my mind the day before. So when we got to Cortez, CO. at about 4pm, I decided to get to get a hold of a barrel racing buddy down there and have her tell me where the fairgrounds was. I knew Cortez had a nice facility that was safe to overnight at. They did have 10x10 pens set up in one of their barns, but I much prefer the horses to have lots of room to move around, so I put them down in the big bucking stock pens by the outdoor arena. Cortez isn't exactly the 1/2 way point, but I didn't know what kind of facilities we would find to overnight the horses farther down the road and I didn't want to risk having to stop and get settled somewhere after it got dark.

Once the horses were settled, the husband and I headed to the casino to get something to eat and unwind a little. I never used to gamble, but my husband has ruined me. ;-) I lost my cash on the tight-assed slot machines, but won all my money back on the roulette table.

Interestingly enough, MH and I had two of the most unusual gambling experiences ever at that little casino. I had won my money back and was getting ready to cash out my chips, but I still had one chip on the table and one in my hand. Not being one who likes odd numbers...I doubled up the chip that was still on the table. I had just hit on that number mind you...and double dog-dared the dealer to hit that number again.

He did! Back to back number roll.

LMAO!

Two dollars turned into $64.

Gotta love that.

I cashed out my chips and hunted up the husband to tell him I was ready to eat. Right when I walked up to the machine he was playing, he hit the bonus round. Thirty-five free spins!

Free spins are great, but only if they hit more credits. Ya know?

Well, that machine wasn't hitting much for credits on those free spins...but all of the sudden it hit the bonus round again. Thirty-five more free spins.

And then this is where it got weird...

The machine just kept hitting the bonus rounds and we thought the darned thing was stuck.

By the time it was all done and said...One Hundred and Ninety free spins.

To bad the machine didn't really hit anything super big. MH won a little over $800. He's won way more than that off of just a single bonus round, so the payout wasn't that spectacular (although that is nothing to sneeze at and it paid for our trip), The number of times the machine kept reseting and giving him free spins was definitely unusual.

The next morning, we waited until it warmed up a bit, so MH didn't freeze his butt off on the bike...loaded up horses and headed down the road again. It was a nice drive.

Initially, my thought had been to go over the mountains from Grand Junction to Durango and straight down to Albuquerque. I didn't realize the road that way was probably not the best option with my rig. Some friends enlightened me to the error of my ways so we went the much easier route of over to Moab, UT, down to Monticello, back to Cortez, CO and then straight south through Shiprock to Gallup, NM, jump on I-40 and straight through Albuquerque and on east to Moriarty. Five hundred, thirty-eight miles from door step to door step. Heck, that's a shorter trip than going back to South Dakota.

We found the arena easy enough and got horses unloaded. I hand-walked the boys while MH got the trailer situated. The horses looked and acted like they had handled the haul pretty well. I always hope that they will figure out how to roll in the arena while on a lead line, but so far none of my horses will do that. Since there were people saddling up horses to ride, I figured letting them loose probably wasn't an option at that moment, so I went a head and got them situated in their pens. Both horses drank good and wanted their hay.

When we had pulled in, one of the guys saddling horses had shouted 'Hi, How Are Ya?' and waved where they were saddling horses. I had waved back and returned the shout, 'Fine, Thanks.', but didn't go over to introduce myself until I had my horses taken care of. Come to find out, the friendly gentleman was Mr, Ed Wright himself...

We visited a few minutes and I asked if they minded if I saddled up and rode with them. Ed said that would be just fine. I saddled up Moon first. I wanted to know if he was going to start acting uncomfortable in his back. That has become a problem every since he jammed his back in July. The chiro says nothing is out. Moon is not sore in the stifle, hock or hind fetlocks. I had a blood work-up and urinalysis done on him and everything is right down the middle. It's frustrating to think that there is something not right with my horse and not be able to find what exactly is the problem. I have had a niggling little suspicion though and was hoping Moon would do his 'thing' while at Ed's clinic. I figured Ed would have some insight.

But no...Moon was right as rain that night. I saw Ed sizing him up and got the distinct feeling he didn't think much of my horse. I'm used to that by now. Moon certainly does not give the impression he has much talent for anything the way he plops around. I have grown to take delight in that. He's a sleeper. I wasn't planning on doing much but just ride around and let Moon stretch his muscles. Ed however had us do some circling exercises, stops, backs, etc. I think he was trying to get a feel for what Moon was. Moon was unimpressed with Ed hollering instructions to me and having to work. When we quit I got the distinct impression Moon knew Ed was calling the shots and he was mentally flipping him off.

On to Frosty...

Frosty was acting like it was his first trip from home. He was bouncing around, didn't want to stand to be saddled and had a huge hump in his back when I let him to the arena. So I did what I have been doing with him when he acts that way...lunge him a little bit and then work him back and forth a little bit to get his feet. Frosty settled down a little bit, but his eyes were still bugging and he still had a hump in his back. I walked over to shut the arena gate...just in case. The guys turned around to watch and I warned them that Frosty may just bog his head and go to bucking when I stepped on. I didn't want them to be caught unaware as they were riding young horses themselves.

Ed jumped off his horse and headed toward me hollering, 'Baby girl...NEVER step on a horse you think is going to blow up.'

He came striding toward Frosty and poor Frosty lost his mind and started running backwards. Ed grabbed his leadrope and went with him. Telling Frosty what a nimcompoop he was being. Frosty kept going, running backward and spinning in circles. Ed just kept going with him. Talking to him in a rough voice, but never pulling on his head. Pretty quick Frosty decided that was too much work to run away from Ed and stopped. He was shaking and his eyes were bugging out of his head, but he was faced up. Ed reached up and started flopping the fender. Frosty was jumping around, flinching and acting like this was the first time anyone had ever done such a thing to him. It was rather funny. Frosty dang sure needs to be handled by other people.

Ed banged around on both sides of the horse and started working his hips and then back and forth on the leadrope. He didn't stop until Frosty stopped acting like a fool and started paying attention to what Ed was asking him to do. When he finally calmed down, Ed asked me how long I had been tolerating such broncy behavior and I had to admit...generations. After all, Frosty's mom was broncy, her mother was broncy and the great-grandmother was pretty snorty and a witch as well. Good enough using horses....but snorty and humpy their whole lives. They work for me, but I sure wouldn't put a horse like that on the market. Frosty is the last of that line for a good reason.

Ed reached in under the cinch, along Frosty's elbow, dug around and poor Frosty went to jerking, spasming and jumping away from his hand. Ed turned around, grabbed my hand and pushed it to the spot he had had been digging in. He said, 'You feel that?'

I wasn't quite sure what he wanted to me to be feeling, so I dug around like he had been doing until my fingers pressed against a rope-like spot and as soon as I pressed on it, Frosty flinched and jumped away. Ed tells me that is a ligament that should NOT feel like that. It should feel smooth and supple under the finger and a horse sure as heck should not be flinching and jumping as soon as you apply pressure. Ed Wright looked me straight in the eye and told me I was a 'Bad horse mommy!'.

This wasn't starting off with quite the impression I had hoped for...

To Be Continued...

With A Heavy Heart

2011-10-12T11:43:00.002-06:00

Things have been exceptionally hectic around here these last few weeks, so I haven't had much time to blog. This morning I was walking around taking pictures of all of the projects going on and planned on doing a rather long post to fill everyone in on all the happy stuff.

Instead, I am very sorry to say that instead, I have to say Rest In Peace to Turk...

As you all know, Turk has been a project horse. For the last year and a half, I have worked on getting him sound again. Due to a massive injury to his right front foot when he was a young horse, I have had a lot of experimental type shoeing done on him to see if we could rectify a floating heel bulb. Although his foot came a long way, it did become apparent to me that he was probably never going to be completely right and at best would be a light riding horse. My mom and I have had several discussions these past few weeks about what exactly we were going to do with him. Taking him back to SD was not an option due to the fact he needed those front shoes and they needed to be reset every 4 weeks. Can't even find a decent farrier in our neck of the woods in SD, much less one that is reliable enough to come reset shoes every 4 weeks. Without the shoes, Turk would have gone back to being completely unsound, in pain and inevitably his front-end would have given out.

The damn thing of it is, the horse has always been accident prone...note the bandage...

If anybody was going to get into something they shouldn't or get hurt...he was the one. Unfortunately poor Turk used up his 9-lives this morning and I had to put him down.

I still have not really figured out how he did what he did, but he was in the pasture with Spooks, Bugs and Jet. Moon and Frosty were in pens waiting for me to clean them up for my trip this weekend, so I know that it was not a fight between Moon and Turk. Anyway, I saw horses at the tank this morning when I left to get work done on my trailer, when I came back, they were all at the far end of the pasture. That's normal. Turk was off by himself. That is also normal. I get a knock at the door with an unfamiliar lady telling me they were working on their fences and noticed my Paint horse had some blood on his leg and wasn't standing on that leg.

Already sick to my stomach at her words, I grabbed a halter and ran up to where Turk was. There wasn't much blood and although the gash in his leg looked horrible at first glance, by the time the vet got here, I realized the gash wasn't that bad. I knew the vet would be putting him down though. He had fractured the high motion joint (the front of the hock). The vet confirmed what I already knew in my heart. The chances of that ever healing right...very slim.

I called my mom. After all, Turk was her horse and I thought she should have the final say. She agreed putting him down was for the best, so that's what we did.

Rest In Peace Turk...You had hard-luck in this life, but you were a pretty nice guy in spite of it all....

I'm A Big Girl Now

2011-10-07T18:35:00.005-06:00

I felt kind of bad that the last few pics I have have put up of Miss Beretta have not been exactly flattering. So I asked her to give you her best race horse pose...

It's not difficult to determine she takes after her mother's side of the family...

I am hoping the weather holds up because it's definitely time to get little sister started under saddle. I've been busy getting all of the new trim primed and painted for the house though. It's been tough to keep up with the contractor. But I'm not complaining. As hard as it was to find someone who shows up and gets things done (and done right)...I was more than happy to give up some of my own time to save a few bucks and keep them on a roll.

I can't really afford to let Beretta mature too much on her own though. The one thing I have found with these blockier made kind of horses is that if left to long, they get really stiff bodied and start to lose maneuverability. If you start them lightly when they are this age and work with them consistently, it goes a long way toward them developing into a more limber and agile adult.

The Lady Bug's Moon's that I have rode seem to have a propensity to want to be a bit heavy on the front-end. Beretta doesn't seem to be so inclined...so far...but both the Leo's and LBM's are heavy shouldered horses. It's going to take consistent work to keep Beretta mobile in the front as she develops even more. Luckily, she has that strong stifle and a good hock-set. She may never be sweepy in the front, but from the way I have seen her move, she seems more inclined to keep her center of balance off her front-end and uses her stifle and hocks to really stop and get turned around.

The stinker can fly too. Watching her run is interesting. She moves very differently than my other horses. She carries that head and neck very upright and all of her speed comes from under her. She reminds me of my friend, L's winning little barrel mare. I don't know if Beretta will ever get a real opportunity to show what she can do. It depends on if she stays sound on that hind leg where she shattered her sesmoid bone, but every since the chiro adjusted her hips a couple of months ago, she has been sound and traveling square. She may hold up better than the vet said she would as a riding horse, but I'll only know if she'll hold up for barrel racing years from now.

First things first though...gotta get her started and riding.

Road Trip!

2011-10-03T21:09:00.002-06:00

NOW

I have something to be excited about!

I just made arrangements to attend the only Ed Wright barrel clinic that is anywhere near me...

Moriarity, New Mexico

In two weeks!

Yaahhhh!!

I was very bummed that the Ed Wright clinic that was scheduled in August, just an hour from me was cancelled. I figured I would have to wait until next year and try to catch any one that was even within a day's drive.

But I talked to my husband this evening and asked if he cared if I went to the one in Moriarity, which is just outside of Albuquerque and he said that was fine. As luck would have it, that is when he has scheduled days off. We will go a couple days early and MH is going to ride his bike down. We'll have a full day to ride around Albuquerque and check out the sights.

Woo-Hooo...MH and I are actually taking a trip together and I get to play biker chick and cowgirl all in one weekend?

It just doesn't get any better than that!

The Big Dork

2011-10-02T12:14:00.000-06:00

Another Finals over. I only ran Spooks because he was the only one in the standings.

I was tied with another girl for 4th in the 4D but I had won more money, so that slot was sewn up, but I was only a few points away from moving up to the 3rd hole, so my goal was to just let Spooks make the same run he has been making all along and hopefully pick up the needed points to move up another peg.

Of all the gosh-darned days for Spooks to decide to be a barrel horse. (Harrumph)...Silly horse ran a 3D time today. Took 7/10th's off his normal times in this arena.

He just made an effortless run and turned the barrels a lot quicker than he has been.

I dunno...

I knew I shouldn't have trimmed his feet.

LOL!!

Now who on earth would think that a barrel racer would come out of the arena thinking...'I wished he hadn't gone so fast!' ???

I knew he had a pretty good run put together and purposely slowed him down and he still ran too fast. (giggles again over the thought of any barrel horse running too fast.)

Oh well, Spooks earned his 4th place headstall...
It was a fun day...beautiful weather and great people. Spooks has had a great year...considering I just started hauling him a couple of months ago and only did because of Moon's back problems. I thought this would probably be Spooks' last run of the year, but come to find out, he is still near the top in points at that little play-day series I started him out on early this year. There's two more of those play-days in the series, so I guess we will go to those and see if he can't pick up the High-Point Buckle for the year.

I thought October would be a slow month and then we would pretty much done, but it's actually looking pretty busy all the way into November. If my plans stay on track, I could be busy with horse-stuff all winter.

I'm Not Dead

2011-09-30T21:22:00.003-06:00

Just haven't felt like posting anything lately. Been busy with unimportant and mundane projects.

I'll be back soon though.

For Lack Of Anything Of Value...

2011-09-24T18:38:00.002-06:00

I'm sure everyone has seen this commercial...

OMG...The E-trade baby makes me laugh. Maybe it was the reference to 'riding the dog like a pony'...being 'frowned upon...in this establishment.'

But while I was looking for this video, I ran across this one, which you will NOT see on T.V....

Is it wrong to think this was hilarious?...and probably realistic.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

And So It Starts

2011-09-21T12:29:00.003-06:00

With the new windows and doors due to arrive any day now, the carpenters came early to start tearing up the old cement slab in the back of the house...
Although the slab was cracked and heaved....it did not come out as easy as we had anticipated.

Whoever put that in back in the 70's intended for it to stay for eternity.

Eternity didn't happen!

With the help of a jackhammer, sledge hammers, pry bars, wire cutters and the bobcat. It's gone.

The parking slab in the front of the house was nothing compared to getting that beast of a patio slab out. Sheez!

I've been on a cleaning tear...aka...Terror!...and spent an entire day cleaning out the walk-in closet in the bedroom and the bathroom cabinets. Eight hours spent cleaning 3 rooms...What the heck?

Actually, I have a one year rule...If I have something in my closet, barring certain expensive or really dressy items...that I haven't worn at least once in the last year....

It's gone.

For the most part, I buy 2nd hand clothes and clearance items anyway, so I always figure I'd rather have a few items that I really like to wear and not have to dig through a bunch of stuff I'm not going to wear anymore anyway.

Lo and behold....

I actually got MH to go through his Harley Davidson shirt collection. The man has hundreds of HD shirts that he has collected from all over the U.S. and the world. He doesn't wear them much anymore though. I was finally able to convince him to let me wash them all up and seal them into airtight bags and store them...Not in the closet!

They were taking up 90% of his side of the closet and he didn't have room to put the clothes he actually wears away.

Needless to say...I am a happy camper about that little project finally being done.

Well, except for the fact I have about 10-15 loads of shirts to wash, dry, fold and get put in those bags and stored yet.

I don't want to waste all of this beautiful fall weather working inside the house, but I have to get a few projects done and stuff put away temporarily so the carpenters will be able to come in to fix the ceiling, build my book case and get new base board put up throughout the house. That will take care of all of the interior work, except the new lighting.

Boy, is it ever going to be nice to not look around and think...'I wished that was finished.'

New Trails

2011-09-18T18:50:00.003-06:00

The weather has cleared up here and it was absolutely stunning today. We had several days of thunderstorms, wind and some decent rain. Which tested the new hay tarp mightily, but it is holding up well and all of the hay is dry and safe.

I called L and we was visiting away on the phone...she was preparing peppers for freezing and I was cleaning the garage out. When all of the sudden it hit us...if we were going to visit...we might as well be doing it on horseback. (Duhhhh!)

So she came and picked me up and took me to one of her favorite places to ride, Horsethief Canyon...
It's an absolutely beautiful place to ride. There are numerous winding trails that follow these canyon walls...
Of course, red rock and these types of formations are my absolute favorite kind of scenery...
Sorry South Dakota...I love the rolling grasslands of my home country, but I find this kind of country much more interesting. I plan on going back and riding there as soon as possible and will get better pictures. L and I are like a couple of magpies when we are together, so I just snapped a few pics with no real attempt to grab the immense beauty that surrounded us.

This was way cute...
It's believed that an old-time sheep herder must have installed this doorway into a tiny cave...or an outlaw?

The ponies had better look out. I was kind of burned out, but getting out and riding in a new, beautiful and immensely interesting area has me craving to go explore every nook and cranny.

Building Her Herd

2011-09-16T22:47:00.004-06:00

I have been working on building the number of horses I can turn out with my pretty little Beretta...
She is a rather timid little girl, which was not helped at all by Frosty's attack on her last Spring. For the longest time she was terrified at the very sight of the buckskin horse. I don't blame her. That was an awful thing to have happen to any youngster, much less one who is a bit timid by nature.

Her sole companion in the pasture until recently has been the ever patient and gentle Spooks...
They make a pretty good pair, with their matching chrome. ;-) I guess sometimes I have to remind myself that Beretta isn't so 'little' anymore. Spooks is just shy of 15.2HH. I'm guessing Beretta is just shy of 15HH now herself. That's not all that little for a 2y/o.

A few days ago, I put her out with Spooks and Turk (the paint horse), fairly certain that Turk would not bother Beretta, but wondering if he might go after Spooks. Turk has always been a bit stud-like, in that he likes to gather up whatever mares he can and herd them away from other geldings. That went off without a hitch with Turk actually moving off and spending most of the day by himself. I have since turned Beretta out with only Turk for a day and that went fine as well. Beretta was not as comfortable sidling up to Turk, but they could share proximity without Turk giving her any stink-eye's or intimidating her in any way.

Today, I decided to see how it would go with the big bay in the mix. Jet is not an aggressive horse and he has been around youngsters before without bothering them. I just want Beretta to learn how to be in a herd, that isn't going to get after her. It's so important for youngsters to learn how to socialize.

At first she stayed plumb away from him and kept her security guard between her and the big bay...

But being an inquisitive youngster, she just had to start easing her way toward Jet...With 'Uncle' Spooks right on her tail...

A little closer now...

And finally...

Jet did pin his ears at Beretta a couple of times and give her the stink-eye and she politely vacated his immediate space. They ran and played a bit. Jet is big on playing. He and Frosty have quite the go-rounds. But he restrained himself with Beretta and they just did a little nippy-face.

The whole day went well, with everyone staying in a bunch. Until supper-time. Everyone came to the fence while I was putting hay out. Jet gave Beretta some serious, get-out-of-my-space ear-pinning and snaky neck. She left...

All the way to the far end of the pasture, where she stood and waited. Bless her heart...She's no dummy. Somebody says, "Leave!"...and she is out of there.

I caught Jet and got him out of there. Beretta slowly eased her way back up to the fence, finally rejoined Spooks and all was fine. I'm glad to see Beretta is willing to leave if she thinks she needs to protect herself, but am hoping she will gain some confidence and figure out she just has to leave the immediate area, not vacate to the far side of the pasture at a mere ugly face pointed in her direction. She's pretty sensitive that way. She is pretty easily intimidated by even me giving her an ugly face. This filly is going to take a very light hand when it comes to training.

Covered For A Year

2011-09-15T18:39:00.002-06:00

This is cowgirl happiness right here...

Partly due to the fact that I get tired of having to go get a load of hay every 4-6 weeks and partly due to the impact the Texas drought is having on our local hay situation...I ordered an entire semi-load of my beloved Gunnison Grass hay from my supplier.

This should just about cover my hay needs for an entire year.

I did tell my supplier to keep his ears open and let me know if he runs across 20-30 large round bales of less than stellar quality hay. Sometimes guys end up with some that got rained on or they didn't get to it before it turned rank. It makes good filler feed, particularly in the winter when I turn horses out most of the time and like to put a round bale out for them to dig around in and lay on.

I suppose I will also round up a couple hundred small squares of good alfalfa to lay in as well, because from what I hear, most people are sending any and all available hay to Texas. It could get a bit scarce...and expensive, come January. That I believe I can just buy from my neighbor and leave stored in his covered barn.

I also ordered 20 bags of beet pulp and will most likely order another 10 to 20 bags to have on hand. That I can store without too much fear of the mice bothering it. Beet pulp has already jumped a $1.50 per bag in the last few weeks and I expect it will go up a whole bunch more before this next winter is over.

I don't quite know what to do about my oats situation. It's gone up in price as well, but I don't have a secure place to store a whole lot of it. Every so often I see some grown by local farmers for sale at a bulk price that would save me a lot of money if I did have a secure storage bin. I might have to look into that.

I know I'm breathing quite a bit easier now that my hay is here though. Whewwww!

Here's One Of Them

2011-09-13T12:58:00.009-06:00

This is the first filly we had born this year...
She was born back in June, but this is the first (and only) picture I have seen of her. I'm guessing she is about 30 days old in this picture.

Her dam is one of our King/Leo bred mares...
This is a mare I won some halter and showmanship classes with and she was a nice rope and ranch horse as well. A lot of power off of the get go, but lacked any long-distance speed, so I never bothered to try her on the barrel pattern.

I do believe our stallion is taking care of the speed department. That boy can mortally fly. Gunner and Beretta seem to have inherited that. I'm sure Shooter has speed to match, but he seems more inclined to slow lope. (slaps forehead)...The ONE horse I was really hoping to be my next barrel horse and he acts like he wants to do western pleasure. Oiy Vey!

Neither the filly or the mare are mine and I won't have to bring her out here to gentle and halter-break. My oldest brother actually gets to lay claim to this filly and he is pretty excited about her.

From the sounds of it, my filly is almost an identical match.

I can live with that. ;-)

Not A Bad End

2011-09-11T18:06:00.006-06:00

They did it!!!!

Megan jockeyed the big black horse well over the weekend and took 1st place for the year end, in the Youth 3D...
Pretty impressive for a horse that we were just having fun on to win a saddle his first year out.

Spooksy, old boy did me grand as well. We took 3rd for year end, in the Open 4D and won a new 5-Star saddle pad...
That is impressive as well, considering I didn't even start running Spooks at the NBHA runs until the last quarter. He just placed so consistently every single time that he bypassed numerous horses that had run all year.

Megz restrained herself during the awards presentations, but once we got in the pickup and headed for home, you couldn't have slapped the grin off of her face. LOL

Moon didn't win anything this year. We garnered points in the 1, 2 and 3D's, but not enough to place in the year end awards. Spooks will never, EVER be anywhere near as fast as Moon, but he sure has him beat, hands down, in the consistency department. God Bless those big, clunky, solid-minded, foundation-bred horses. ;-)

Finally Here

2011-09-10T06:43:00.002-06:00

The long awaited arrival of my foal....f.i.n.a.l.l.y. happened.

Yea, yea I know....Three months after she was supposed to foal, my maiden mare, Beauty...

Dropped me, from what I hear, a spritely, healthy, BAY filly.

Huh...Who would have guessed another bay?

LMAO

I mean after all, momma is bay.

The daddy is bay...

*I* was hoping for black or dark brown. Not implausible. Due to the high percentage of black in the pedigree.

I guess she does have a bit of an oblong/teardrop white marking on her face.

NOW I can go home. I have been holding off because I wanted to see my foal...but I knew if the mare had not foaled by the end of this month, she was not going to. I be quite honest, I am fairly disgruntled at yet another late foal. In the grand scheme of things, it won't matter, because I do not do futurities or anything. It's the lack of management that is pissing me off.

However, she is here...and healthy.

This filly is a 3/4ths sister to Beretta...
(Please forgive this atrocious picture of Beretta...She really is not this ugly)
The new filly and Beretta share the same sire and their mothers are 1/2 sisters. The dams share the same sire (our old Lady Bug's Moon bred stallion). The only difference in bloodlines is how the dams are bred on the bottom. Beretta's mother was Leo and Sugar Bars bred on the bottom. The new filly's mother is King and Poco Pine on the bottom. Who knows if they end up growing up to look similar to each other or completely different.

Since the new girl was immediately distinguished as a bay, my hope is that she turns a similar dark bay as her older 1/2 brother (same sire), Shooter...

Shooter is now a 3y/o and when I go home, I will be bringing him back to Colorado with me and starting him under saddle. I can't wait to see him again. The above picture was from the fall of his yearling year. From what my mom says, he has turned into a strapping young man.

Cooking Up A Storm

2011-09-08T12:17:00.003-06:00

Please forgive my absence this last week, I have been fighting a bit of the blahs. In such times, I don't feel like talking much. I just putter aimlessly, in my own little world for awhile.

My garden has been killing me. I have given grocery bag after grocery bag of produce away, cooked some for every meal and the piles just keep growing. I don't remember having this much excess when we had big gardens as a kid.

Then it hit me...

Back then, we also had lots of chickens and as least one hog.

Well, that explains that. I told MH that since I am allowed to have a garden again next year...

We'll probably have to go the chicken and hog route as well.

The allowed to have a garden again has become a joke between MH and I due to the large amount of time I spend puttering in the garden. However, the husband has deemed that time worthy due to the number of new dishes on the menu.

This year has been a learning process to be sure. I was a kid that last time I remember gardening seriously. My mom always had a garden until '76 when the grasshoppers descended and ate everything in sight. I clearly remember how absolutely disgusting they were in those years.

When my dad moved back to the family ranch in the early 80's, he took up where my grandmother had left off and had acres and acres of garden. I don't think I was even born yet when my grandmother was bitten on the finger by a rattlesnake when she was picking tomatoes, but I grew up with that story embedded in my head, that when gardening....you must be very, very careful about digging around in the plants. To this day, and even though we do not have any poisonous snakes in the area I live in now, that thought crosses my mind and I am cautious when I start digging around for hidden produce.

Oddly, some of my best memories of my dad was gardening with him. He was a much different person when he was working in his garden than anywhere else. I think it gave him a sense of peace and purpose. He was a very troubled man.

Even though I have been a bit overwhelmed with the sheer production of my tiny little garden, I can totally relate to why my dad's garden made him feel good.

Needless to say, I have had to do some digging to come up with new recipes to use up all of this that I am growing. The freezer is holding all of the extra peas and corn. I have tried canning some pickles and can't wait to try them in a few weeks. I have my fingers crossed that they turn out. MH is a dill pickle fan. I prefer a zesty bread and butter.

I have baked zucchini bread and muffins and froze them. I tried several recipes until I found the one we liked the best. It's a bit more cake-like than bread-like. I am currently trying chocolate zucchini cake recipes. I have also grated numerous bags of zucchini and froze them to use later in the winter. Shredded zucchini freezes very well.

Multiple recipes for zucchini patties have been tried and we settled on two that we really like. One has bread crumbs, one is more of pancake batter style.

I have served stuffed zucchini, made by gently cooking the whole zucchini, cutting it in half, cleaning out the squash, mixing that with sausage and parmesan cheese and then filling the shells with the mixture and baking. THAT was a huge success. The flavor was there, even if I was disappointed that my zucchini shells went totally flat. LOL

The latest and greatest was Zucchini Custard Pie. Sounds kinda gross, but we have absolutely inhaled them. MH says they are his new favorite pie.

The one thing that I have had a hard time coming up with new recipes for was the yellow squash. My tried and true recipe for fried squash chips has not gotten old yet. MH really likes them just for something to nosh on. But outside of that and a couple of casserole dishes I would like to try yet, I was coming up short of what to do with the yellow squash. It doesn't particularly freeze or can well. Although, if I could find some casserole recipes for it, I was thinking of seeing how it froze in shredded form like the zucchini.

While I was digging through my piles of recipes and recipe books, I ran across an old page I had saved that had a zucchini/squash relish recipe. Since I am inundated with produce, I figured I'd give it a shot. Not to mention it called for the use of 'Italian peppers'.

In my pepper selection this year, I had included some Gypsy peppers. They have been quite prolific, but neither MH or I cared for the taste of them raw or sauted, so I was at a loss of what to do with the excess. I have been chopping them up and putting them in the pico de gallo, as well as the salsa I have started making, but as I said, they are prolific little buggers, so I don't ever seem to use them up.

Let me just say...I ate spoonfuls of this relish while it cooled. OMG...It is delicious. The recipe does not call for canning it, rather it is a refrigerator relish (lasts about 2 weeks) or can be froze for a month. I am thinking it could be canned and am going to try that for the next batch. I immediately ran out and bought some Italian sausages and bratwursts and it's heavenly piled up on them. I think it would be good piled on hamburgers as well. It's wonderfully sweet and tangy, a bit crunchy and the addition of jalapenos and curry gives it a lot of depth.

If anyone is interested, I'm happy to share the recipes. Believe me, I am not into complex cooking. If anyone has squash or zucchini recipes that they are particularly fond of...please send them my way. I'm drowning in a sea of squash. ;-)

Down To A Science

2011-09-01T11:56:00.000-06:00

One of the technologies developed specifically for barrel racers is a breaking down of the time spent on each portion of the barrel run called Interval Time Reports. I have never been to a barrel race where they have had this option available before, but they did at the Xtreme Barrel Race. Unfortunately, my Saturday run was such a dismal failure that it was useless to me, but Sunday's run was darned sure good enough to get a print-out.

I did a hand-drawn version for you because the printout I have has a tiny pattern and now I can't get the picture to show on blogger in an upright position. Hopefully, it's still understandable...

Interval Time Training measures how much time your horse spends on each of 7 portions of the barrel pattern compared to the fast run of the day.

#1-Is the time it takes to get from the starting line to where the horse starts to turn the 1st barrel. Moon took 1.534 seconds to complete this portion and ran 22.22 miles per hour. The fast horse of the day did it in 1.380 seconds and ran 24.70 mph. So the fast horse of the day beat us by .154 of a second.

This is something that I believe is still a work in progress. Moon has just lately really started to run to 1st barrel. I am still more concerned that we get the rate properly and get around the barrel in good form than I am about all out speed. Although we are almost there and we seem to be handling it better. The first barrel is considered the 'money barrel' and how well you can get around it pretty much sets you up for the rest of the run. Unless of course, you have my problem, which is remembering to drive into the 2nd turn. LOL

#2-Is the time it takes to get around the 1st barrel. Moon took 1.928 seconds to complete his 1st turn. The fast horse of the day did it in 1.864 seconds. We were beat by .064 seconds.

Not terribly concerned about that fraction of a second. I believe when Moon gets up to full speed running to the barrel, he will have the momentum to nip that off a little bit.

#3-Is the time it takes to get from 1st barrel to 2nd barrel. Moon took 2.858 seconds and ran 20.28 mph. The fast horse did it in 2.494 seconds and ran 23.24 mph. We were beat by .364 seconds.

This was a biggie. Because I did handle Moon to keep him from wanting to duck into the 2nd barrel, I'm sure I inadvertently kept him rated down. I'd almost bet this is where we are consistently losing time. Hopefully, now that I realize it, I will start asking Moon for more here. I really, really need to get over what we were doing going into the 2nd barrel and just drive him for all he's worth .

#4-Is the time it takes to get around the 2nd barrel. Moon took 1.479 seconds to get around the 2nd barrel. The fast horse took 1.633 seconds. So Moon actually beat the fast horse around the second barrel by .154 seconds.

Certainly can't complain about that.

#5-Is the time it takes to get from 2nd barrel to 3rd barrel. Moon took 3.169 seconds, at a speed of 21.52 miles per hour. The fast horse did it in 3.159 seconds at a speed of 21.58 miles per hour. We were only beat by .010 of a second.

Can't complain about that either.

#6-Is the time it takes to get around 3rd barrel. Moon took 1.464 seconds. The fast horse took 1.529. Moon beat the fast horse around the 3rd barrel by .065 of a second.

No complaints here. If all the other factors were equal, this would even out the longer fraction of a second it took us to get around 1st barrel.

#7-Is the time it takes to get from the 3rd barrel back across the finish line. Moon took 3.691 seconds, at a speed of 25.86 mph. The fast horse did it in 3.484 seconds at 27.40 mph. We were beat by .207 seconds.

Yea...about all I can say about this is, either we are simply getting outrun or due to Moon being off and on for the last month, he has lost the condition he needs to keep powering all the way to the end. This did surprise me though as I always thought that Moon made up a lot of time on his run home. The bugger can really stretch out and run. Maybe just not fast enough?

Moon spent a total time of 4.871 seconds in his turns, whereas the fast horse spent 5.026 seconds making his turns. We are better by .155 of a second. Where we really got our ass kicked was in the straightaways. Moon took 11.252 seconds to complete each of his 4 straightaways, where the fast horse took 10.517 seconds. We were beat by .735 of a second. Almost 4 10th's of that was simply between 1st and 2nd barrel. Since Moon can keep pace with the fast horse between 2nd and 3rd and is almost as fast going to 1st, this isn't because he can't be as fast, it has to be because I am still safetying up. The run home? I dunno. I hope that is a conditioning issue and that we really aren't getting outrun that badly cause there is no 'cure' for that. :-/

**The time used to compare Moon's run to was the fast time at the time we left on Sunday. I see on the results that the actual fast time on Sunday was a 15.169. Moon ran a 16.123, so was one second off of the fast time. I'm anxious to get that printout to compare. I have a feeling he just got really outrun in the straightaways.

Now, I don't know if Moon has what it takes to actually catch the kind of horses that are winning these big races like this. Those are some powerhouse deluxes. I do think we are capable of taking at least a 1/2 a second off of our times in general.

If he had run just .046 of a second slower, he would have been exactly one second off of the fast time and won the 3D (and over $900). It takes longer to blink than the difference in times it takes to draw a check or not.

Moon got his last treatment after he had been walked out after his run. The therapist did find tension in his loin but she thought that might be due to heat in the muscle yet. A horse has to be dry to do the treatments, so I did not cold hose him after his run like I normally do to cool his muscles out. You are also not supposed to bath them within 4 hours after having a treatment. Something to do with the water washing whatever the electric pulses do out of the muscles. Moon was totally relaxed through the whole 45 minutes. Did a lot of yawning and chewing about the 25 minute mark, then pretty much went to sleep. There were no more signs of aggravation or irritability. I put him back in his stall to rest while we got packed up and ready to leave. He drank good, did not pee this time, but went back to eating. Moon really likes to eat...in case you guys didn't catch that. LOL. I'm pretty sure that while he is eating one meal, he is thinking about the next one.

I did ask the therapist about whether hauling him would negate the benefit of the last treatment and while she did tell me that it wasn't optimal, we didn't have much of a choice. Which is my one reservation about getting treatments done AT these barrel races. I think they do help, but there you are...either getting ready to compete again or getting ready to haul home. I'm sure that has to negate a good portion of the healing properties of the treatments, which seems to me, kind of turns it into a quick fix vs. a true healing treatment. A darned good reason to take those classes and get my own unit right? Not to mention, no one else around here does these treatments publicly. It might be a good opportunity to make money at the local barrel races.

The Last Day (Photos Added)

2011-08-31T06:15:00.001-06:00

Crap, I forgot to add the photos last night...I had to do a photo of the photo because I don't have a digital copy, so they aren't that great, but you get the idea. ;-)

One of the things I realized after my 1st run and told L, I never should have entered in the first 100 horses to run on the first day. Obviously, we had planned to be at the arena hours before we actually arrived, the night before and figured we would have plenty of time to watch the Xtreme 15 Race. I never bothered to enter Moon in any of the time-only's because I don't particularly worry about him spooking at anything (not that we would have made those anyway). Him seeing the arena before hand is not a big priority. It is for myself.

Seeing the arena beforehand and being able to watch some of the runs gives me a chance to get the feel for the arena, positioning and ground conditions. L had run at this arena before so was not running in blind like I was on the first day. I mean, I had taken the time to actually look into the arena, but there is no way to really watch a full run from the warm-up pen.

After L and I had run and taken care of horses on the first day, we went back up and watched most of the 200 plus runs yet to go. After watching about 50 runs, I turned to L and told her I was ready to run. She got a pretty good laugh out of that, but said that she felt bad she hadn't thought about the extra time I might take me to get mentally prepared to run when she suggested we enter the first 100. I didn't think of it either. Mostly we had just planned on getting our runs over with before the heat of the day. Another lesson learned.

On Sunday, I was better prepared mentally and after we all came to the conclusion that running Moon would be okay, L told me I needed to put that worry out of my head and get prepared to make my run. Luckily, this time, she ran well before me, got her mare put away and was in the stands ready to give me instructions.

One thing I have always hated is people who just scream at someone through their whole run. It's not cheering or hearing people holler, 'Yea, Go On' or hollering 'Sit' or 'Look' that bothers me...it's the incessant screaming of, 'Kick, kick, kick...Go, go, go...Sit, Look, Kick, kick, kick' through the whole run that drives me nuts. All you hear when you are running is a jumble of screams that usually make no sense at whatever point you are at. L is really good at pinpointing when to yell a specific instruction and just generally cheering at the right point. I cheer for L whenever I can as well because her little mare really responds to people cheering for her, the little show-off. LOL

Even though Moon had had a problem going in the gate the day before, I sort of prepared myself for him to not really want to go in this run. That was the one little niggling reservation I had left. I told myself if Moon didn't want to go in the gate that meant he was probably still hurting and I was not going to push him in the run. I would just let him coast, even if that meant slow loping the pattern.

What I almost wasn't prepared for was Moon walking through the side gate and charging through my hands TOWARD the barrels. I had just started to gather up my reins when Moon saw those barrels. He didn't try to leave, instead he gathered into a full bore charge, shooting straight toward the 1st barrel. I got my reins gathered up and the only thought in my head was, 'He wants this, ride the hell of it.'

I did too. I don't think I was pushing Moon very hard to 1st, but he was running, I just told myself to sit down about 2 strides before the barrel and let him come around. He did and never lost a step...

One problem I have been having is letting go of the horn too early and switching hands before Moon even really gets out of his 1st turn. I know I started to do this again, but only made it one stride before remembering to get both hands back on the reins to help keep Moon balanced all the way into his 2nd pocket. It worked. Moon almost wanted to rate a bit before the barrel, but I just drove him that one extra stride up into the turn and then let go of the outside rein...

I knew I missed my last look spot on this turn because I remember looking at the edge of the barrel and telling myself, "Don't drop your shoulder or he is going to take that barrel out coming out of it.' He did roll right back around and I felt my leg brush the barrel, but it didn't even rock. (Whew)

Moon whipped around that second barrel and took off like a shot. I don't think I 2-handed him to 3rd (that was a bit of a blur). If Moon comes out of his 2nd barrel good, he doesn't really need help to 3rd. Just point him toward the pocket and let him run. I sat down a bit late at 3rd, which didn't affect Moon, but it did me a little bit. I wasn't quite sat down when he rolled around the barrel and I know I dropped my hand and shoulder. My chin dropped and I remember looking at the top of the barrel. My leg tinged the barrel and it rocked. I was saying to myself, 'Oh crap, oh crap, look up, look up.' I did and we made it out of there.

One of the nice things about run out gates is that you don't have to look to the side to see when you pass the eye. I have had Moon try to cheat me a little when he feels me look to the side to see when I pass the timer/flagger, but this time I just kept looking straight ahead at the end of the alley. Moon ran straight out like a pro.

As good as Moon ran, I figured for sure our time would be just a hair under 16 seconds, but it was only a 16.123.

A HUGE, VAST improvement over the day before...don't get me wrong on that...but that run felt so darned good and I know Moon is so capable of clocking that I was a tad miffed our time had been that slow. As a matter of fact, we have had several really good runs this year and yet can't seem to make the times I thought we should make. I can't figure it out.

I sure enough wanted to find out where we lost all that time at and this barrel race had the perfect solution...

Even more yet to come...

It Ain't Over Til It's Over

2011-08-30T13:38:00.002-06:00

I gotta tell you guys...

Hanging with L these last few weeks has been a boon for me. She is a seasoned veteran in the rodeo/barrel racing world. I try like hell not to be the whiny novice. I've been fortunate to have several of the girls I run with and whose abilities I respect, give me helpful tips. It's really interesting because usually what *I* think is the problem, is not even close. These ladies can spot the root of whatever problem I have ever had and it is usually about 2-3 strides before where the problem actually happens. L is particularly good for me because, while she is not mean, she is blunt. I appreciate blunt.

When I came out of my crappy ass, first time to town run on Saturday, L was there shaking her head at me. She had to get ready for her run, so kept my mouth shut and waited at the gate with her. I am very careful about disturbing anyone when they are trying to concentrate on what they need to be doing. Sadly, the world does not revolve entirely around me. LOL

Afterward, L and I talked at length. She believes more than anything, I am just playing mind games with myself. She thinks Moon is capable. She thinks I am capable. I just don't always get my head right before I run and on a horse like Moon...it shows up...In a big way.

We decided that when it cooled off in the evening, we would get horses back out and have a little late night practice session.

I didn't think Moon felt right when I was warming him up. He was wringing his tail more than ever and starting to do his stop and stand there thing again. Personally, I think Moon always has a pissy-look about him, but he looked abnormally pissy...and felt it too.

I had checked his back before saddling and he wasn't reactive in his loin, so I wasn't sure what was going on.

L had me go around the pattern a couple of times and Moon did not feel right in his turns. I wished I could be more specific when I say 'did not feel right', but there really is no way to describe exactly what the problem was. The only thing both L and I noticed was Moon was really wringing his tail as soon as he set in for a turn. That alone is a problem.

Out of curiosity, L had me reverse the pattern and send Moon to the left barrel first. Moon started to set into that left hand barrel and then all of the sudden, he slung his head and started crow-hopping with me.

Bingo!!! We found the problem.

Something is still pinched in Moon's left side/hip and when he sets for that turn...it hurt. Hence the stiff neck.

The nice thing about these big barrel races is there is almost always a vet, a chiro and at least one 'alternative' therapy person.

I wasn't impressed with the chiro, all I had seen the vet do was inject hocks and the 'alternative' therapy was something I had never seen done before.

I pretty much figured that the next morning I would have to request a horse change. We had brought Spooks with us on this trip as a back-up for just this reason. I knew I wasn't going to be running Moon in the shape he was in.

As L and I stood there discussing the situation and the options, another barrel racer came over, she apologized for overhearing our discussion, but told me to take Moon up and have the alternative therapy person work on him. She related several personal experiences with this type of therapy and thought it to be very beneficial.

Well...

I sure didn't have anything to lose at this point.

They did have a special going on, 3 treatments for the price of 2. Another mere $200 that disappeared into someone else's pocket (note the sarcasm?)...

Even though it was late, the gal hooked Moon up to her little machines. The poor horse had brass tags and wires coming off of him all over. From his poll, down to his front feet. From his hip down to his back feet. The other horses I had seen worked on had all seemed exceptionally relaxed and quite content. Moon?...Not so much.

He slung his head. Stomped his feet. Tried to sideswipe the tables with the machines on him and generally acted like a jerk. The therapy takes 45 minutes to complete. About 35 minutes into it...Moon started to have a fit. He started wringing his tail, stomping his hind feet and swinging his head and body every which way. He was pissed and making no bones about showing us all something was aggravating him. That carried on for about 5 minutes, which seems like eternity when you are trying to keep your horse from demolishing these people's very expensive equipment. I was just about to tell them to take it off, when all of the sudden, Moon dropped his head and relaxed.

No exaggeration. It was like someone had flipped a switch. The gals working the booth all nodded and said, 'Yup...It finally worked it's way through whatever was causing him pain.'

????...Uhhhh...Ooohhh-kayyy?

Heck if I know.

I put Moon in his stall, he immediately drank almost a full bucket of water, took a big long pee and proceeded to finish his supper.

The next morning, I was back at their tent at 7am for his second treatment. Moon was most definitely better this time around. If not totally relaxed to begin with. At about the 30 minute mark, he got pissy again for a few minutes, stomping his feet, wringing his tail and slinging his head. Knowing from the previous night that the therapist believed this meant the pulses had found and started working their way though the painful spot, I wasn't as worried about stopping the treatment. Within a few minutes Moon relaxed and started yawning. He yawned and yawned...chewed and yawned some more. He just got more and more relaxed. This time I noticed a big change in his eye. It got much softer. He wasn't slinging his head around any more or wringing his tail or stomping his hind feet.

Now, I didn't really think the night before that the treatment was going to work enough on Moon to be able to run him. I was totally prepared to go to the office and switch horses.

I asked the girl if she was sure I should be running Moon. Since the treatment seemed to be helping relax him...did I want to risk undoing what seemed to be a good thing happening by running him?

She said, the only way to know was to ride him and see what I thought, but the whole point of the treatments was to relieve pain, start the healing process and keep the horse competing. I put Moon back in his stall for about 30 minutes to relax, he again drank almost a full bucket of water, took a pee and started working on what was left of his breakfast.

When I saddled him up to test him out, there was not a single bit of aggravation. No head slinging, no tail wringing. He was just 'Moon' again. His neck felt much more flexible and he just felt soft and willing.

Ya know...and at this point...You just wonder what the hell is the right thing to do?

His pain was obviously relieved, but is running him going to undo what the treatments seemed to be helping?

Were the treatments just a band-aid?

At this point, I find myself questioning everything. I have very little experience with determining how far to push forward with a horse that is 'off his game'. People want to act like the lines are so cut and dried...and they are not. If a horse is gushing blood, sick or 3-legged lame...it's obvious. Moon crow-hopping with me around the barrel the night before...pretty obvious.

Now, with what felt like my 'old' Moon back under me...serious doubts were taking over. Horses can't 'fake' being better. Sans drugs (which Moon had none of)), either they are better or they are not. I had to talk to my more experienced friends to help me decide. With people watching, I put Moon through his warm-up routine and loped the pattern once. I thought he felt fine. They thought he looked fine. No tail wringing, no aggravated looks, no hesitation in his movement. We came to the conclusion that there was no reason not to run him.

Now it was time to get my game face on.

To be continued...

**Note...I did not know exactly what these treatments did until I got home and started reading up on them. I was concerned that if this was something that was gong to help and Moon needed more of these treatments that I wouldn't have access to it without driving 4 hours to this gal's home base, but I believe this is the same type of system that my farrier uses on his reining horses and he has offered to work on Moon for me as well.

At this point, I still do not know exactly what is going on with Moon, although he seems much better. *I* suspect he has dropped a vertebrae (or 2) between his thoracic and loin juncture (T18-L2). The chiro was not able to get that back in line, but perhaps if I get him and the farrier to work together, we can get that to pop back into proper alignment. I was told that these types of treatments work well together when something gets really stuck. The electro acuscope and myopulse mitigate the pain and tension around the locked up area allowing the chiro to achieve the necessary manipulation. I was also told that sometimes the electro treatments mitigated the pain/tension/inflammation issues enough on their own that the vertebrae were able to move back into the correct position on their own. Either way, this therapy is fairly fascinating to me and I am looking into taking the certification classes and purchasing the equipment.

From The Beginning

2011-08-28T23:24:00.003-06:00

What at weekend....

I apologize for the lack of posts last week. I was on a mission to have everything ready to go on Friday, when L and I headed off to Salina, Utah for the last Xtreme Barrel Race of the Year.

It was a heinous week to say the least.

However, by 3pm on Friday, L and I were loaded and heading down the highway. We took my rig because it gave us a lot more room to haul everything. We girls don't exactly pack light. LOL

About 30 miles out of town, we passed a rig we knew, pulled off to the side of the road with a blown tire. It looked like the girls just about had the tire changed, so we kept rolling. Not even a mile down the road...

Yup...We blew a tire.

So there we were, in 95 degree temps, out there changing OUR tire. I already had the spare ready to put on, when a nice guy pulled over and finished the job for us...

Uh-Oh....

I've never had a flat on my trailer before, but my step-dad taught me to occasionally whack the spare to make sure it was full of air. Guess I forgot to do that the last couple of times. My spare was flat.

Soooo...I get on the bat phone and call the hubby.

He heads our way with an air bomb. Airs up the spare, but we are hesitant to continue on with no spare. We turn around, come back home, have the station put a new tire on the spare, check the rest of the tires....

Which by the way, still look brand new.

Everything checks out. L and I bite the bullet and head out again.

We're rolling down the road, laughing and talking, roll past where we blew the first tire, hold our breathes and keep rolling.

Not 10 more miles down the road...

Yup...We blow another tire.

Holy Hell!!!

L and I can not believe it. We are just sick.

L and I decide trying to proceed on, with no spare and we are pretty sure there is no place between Grand Junction and Salina that we can buy another one...and lord knows what's going on with my tires is not a good idea.

She calls her husband to bring her rig, so we can trade out.

Her husband hauls butt to meet us. When he gets there, L and I haul everything we need out of my trailer, load it in her trailer and haul to the next exit to switch horses. At this point, we are hot, tired and not sure if Karma is trying to tell us something...

I told L, if she blew a tire on her rig, we were turning around and going home. I would reimburse her entry fees. LOL...I would have too. It really looked like the cards were stacked against us.

Salina is only a 3 hour trip and it's Interstate the whole way...It took us 7-1/2 hours to get there.

So much for getting there early in the daylight to get unloaded, settled and have time to watch the Xtreme 15 race.

By the time we got horses settled and taken care of, not to mention ourselves...It was 1am.

Six a.m. came pretty quickly the next morning. Not that we or the horses got much rest because there were rigs pulling in all night.

For some odd reason, both L and I thought the barrel race started at 10am the next morning, so we were dinking around, until nearly 8am. L goes up to get the draws and comes back on the run. The barrel race started at 8am. Both of us were in the first 100.

Yea...The f.i.r.s.t. one hundred. There were 245 barrel racers pre-entered and by the time it was all said and done, 351 barrel racers ran.

I ran before L on Saturday and let me tell you...I was not prepared.

#1) Moon had gotten a scrape on his leg the weekend before and on Wednesday, it decided to swell up. A scrape mind you!! He was completely sound and I had gotten most of the swelling out with ice and Bigeloil before we left, but Geez, it freaked me out a little to have his leg swell up like that. I feel like I have the damn vet on speed dial here lately. Over the stupidest crap too. The vet reassured me, it was probably the heat and flies (even though I had the scrape itself bandaged) that caused the swelling. He didn't see any reason not to go ahead and go.

#2) I have never been to this arena before and because we got there so late, I never even got a chance to see it or to see anyone else run. I was up too early in the draw to be able to take the time to go sit and watch any of the runs, so I really felt like I was running blind. NOT a good feeling, particularly since it was a run in, run out alley. Moon has only ever had one opportunity to perform in a run-out and I was having flashes of me turning into an arena dart or getting a knee scraped off if he decided to circle left at the end of his run instead of run out the open gate.

#3) When I was warming Moon up, he was wringing his tail. Moon is NOT a tail wringer. He seemed to be moving out fine. Picked up both leads and held them, pooped normally, took his pee...but he felt stiff in his neck and was wringing that tail.

Needless to say, I had a lot of other stuff on my mind when we came through that side gate and headed in to make our first run.

It was a disaster. It felt like Moon really took off. He turned 1st barrel beautifully and then it was the same old problem we have struggled with. He got stiff in his neck and rather than ride him forward and round the barrel, I just sat down and tried to get him to flex. We hammered 2nd barrel.

For Cripes Sake...After all we went through to get there and I go in and completely chicken out during my run?

I was just sick...

What a stupid, stupid thing to do.

To Be Continued...

The Next Day

2011-08-23T10:05:00.000-06:00

The next day we hauled up to the 2nd barrel race and when we unloaded, Moon was again a bit sore over his loin. Even though he had not been before we left and it was only a 40 mile trip. But he wasn't as sore as he had been the day before. The vet had told me it might take a couple of days for everything to settle down again and of course, there is still the possibility of the feed affecting his kidneys or an infection, which would take a few days to work itself out.

I gave him 2 grams of bute, hand walked and massaged him til he was once again relaxed and dozing. During warm-up he was still hesitating, but he didn't feel as he was as uncomfortable as he was before.

Since he had been such a booger about going in the gate the night before, I was concerned he was going to do it again. One bad gate night is not much cause for concern. Two in a row...spells trouble brewing.

But Moon walked right up the L-shaped alley and gawked around the arena. I was really hoping he would pick up that 1st barrel, so I gave him a few seconds. This was not the same kind of run we had going as the night before. Too much other stuff on my mind I guess...

I can just about count out 2-10ths we lost on 1st barrel and at least 2-3 more 10ths we lost getting to and around 3rd. I have NO IDEA what the hell I was doing letting him get so wide at 3rd. It's like I just sat there and let him fade out. I hollered at him...LOL...but did nothing to bring him back in line until we were at the barrel. Sheez!

Spooks on the other hand, had his best run yet...

You can see where he is losing time, coming out of 1st and coming out of 2nd. But, like I have said, he is still very green. These things will come to him, but he sure is trying to run harder.

Megan picked up a few more points in the Youth division on him and is now tied for the lead. The outcome will all rest on the last two races at the Finals.

I did end up picking up checks on both horses though. Moon placed 3rd in the 2D and Spooks placed 2nd in the 4D.

It Was So Simple

2011-08-22T09:57:00.000-06:00

Come to find out...Moon was an easy fix!

Any guesses as to what these nasty little buggers are?...

Okay, okay...no sense making 2 posts about it....

I had a couple of friends watch Moon move while I was warming him up and after watching him for about 10 minutes, both of them came to the same conclusion.

Moon probably had either a troublesome 'bean' or a bladder or kidney infection.

It just took a fresh set (actually 2 sets) of eyes and people with no preconceived notion about what the problem might be.

All three of the big beans were hard, but two of them felt like rocks they were so hard. I couldn't even squish the center of them with my fingers.

The girls recommended I have a vet clean Moon out, but I've never had any problems cleaning him myself, so I just grabbed some mineral oil and a bucket of warm water and had him cleaned up in less than 10 minutes.

I'm quite amazed that Moon had accumulated so much and that two of those balls got so rock hard. I just cleaned everyone in March and I regularly clean everyone's sheaths with plain water when I am bathing them. I don't dig around for a bean every time I go groping around in there, but a couple of times a year, I make sure to clean the head. None of my geldings need to be aced for me to do it.

On Sunday, I went through the entire herd. Within an hour, 5 geldings had been cleaned. Turk had a single, soft bean...interestingly enough it was completely white. Spooks had a huge bean, about the size of the end of my pinky, but it was soft. Bugs, who is the most prone to getting a swelled up looking sheath, barely had anything. Frosty had 2 kidney bean sized, but soft beans and Jet, had nada.

To be on the safe side, I am going to try to catch a urine sample from Moon and have it tested for infections, but I am leaning toward the problem being those rock hard beans. I had not noticed Moon having difficulty urinating, nor did I notice anything strange about his stream, but they say a bean that presses against the right spot can make a horse sore in the loin and hips, imitating a kidney infection.

Kidney and bladder infections are fairly rare in horses...but when the girls mentioned a possible kidney infection, I got to thinking...

About the time that Moon popped his back out, I had started him on an additional feed called PowerGlo. The heat was zapping his energy and I hated to up his oats intake even more. PowerGlo is a high-fat, concentrated feed with vitamins, minerals,and probiotics designed specifically for barrel horses and high performance horses. It's entirely possible that it was too much of a load for his kidneys.

Did Moon hurt his back?

Yes, I do believe he did. The run he had right before he turned up lame was right before I had shoes put on him, I knew he was stabbing his hind toes and as bad luck would have it, that night the arena we ran in had shallow, hard ground. I'm confident that is when he popped his back out.

But even the chiro was stumped as to why he was still so reactive in his back the last time he saw him. He said he was not out and couldn't feel any damage to the muscle. So we figured he just needed some time off.

I couldn't keep feeding Moon that high-powered feed if he wasn't running or being ridden because in just a couple of days he started climbing the walls. So I kept his oats level where it was at and stopped feeding the PowerGlo. For the next week, Moon would be fine one day and reactive the next. This last week, he had no reaction in his loin muscle...

But he still did not seem himself....

When I knew I was going to start running him again, I started adding a bit of the PowerGlo to his feed again and worked him back up to 2lbs a day again. And Boom...As soon as I hauled him, he was sore over the loins again.

I've pulled the PowerGlo from his feed again, however won't know if it was the feed or the beans that caused the loin soreness. I'm going to give Moon this week, with no PowerGlo and see how he does. Cleaning those rock-hard beans out should help and might have been the only reason he was sore.

When I get a couple of weeks when I don't have to run him, I'll try the PowerGlo and see if he gets tender in the kidney area again. If he doesn't then it was the beans. If he does then it was the feed and I'll dump it from my program. The urine tests will tell me if there is an actual infection.

As of this morning, Moon is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. No soreness and all hesitation in his movement is gone.

Ooohhh...And lest I forget to mention....As soon as I cleaned Moon out at the barrel race, I gave him 2 grams of Bute. Yup...There I am again...Buting my horse so I can compete on him. LOL...

Nawwww...the old, retired veterinarian (husband of one of the barrel racers) that was there told me I probably should give him a couple of grams to help calm any residual inflammation before running him. By then the horse had been massaged to within an inch of his life and wasn't reactive over the loin anymore...

It was mostly just a better safe than sorry precaution. LMAO...It ended up being unnecessary because we didn't get much of a run in after all. ;-)

Well...That Was Interesting

2011-08-21T15:08:00.000-06:00

Headed to a couple barrel racings this weekend...with almost a full load.

Spooks, Frosty and Moon.

Megan too.

I left Turk at home because I figured I would have my hands full with what I had.

Meg hasn't been going to the barrel racings with me lately, but since she was still sitting 2nd in the Youth 3D, with only a one point difference...I asked her to go to the remaining 3 barrel races and see if she can't pick up enough points to win the saddle.

(A terminology post about the 'D's to follow this post to explain how they are determined)

We got to Montrose on Friday, got horses settled in and I checked Moon's back as has become an almost obsessive habit now...

After a week of absolutely NO reaction...

His loin muscle was reactive.

Oh HELL!!!

That is a post within itself and I think we finally have it figured out....but you'll have to wait to hear the whole story.

We did get Moon fixed up and I ran him...

Well....Sort of...

I chose to run Spooks first, as it is easier to move from him to Moon than it is the other way around and had 25 barrel racers between the two runs...take into consideration there is a tractor rake of the pattern every 5 barrel racers....and that gives you a lot of time to warm-up.

Spooks had a nice run. OMG, that horse cracks me up. He came in, popped off in the wrong lead, so I broke him down, he picked up his correct lead just before the electric eye and shot off like a rocket. I guess Spooks is getting the idea he is a barrel horse. LOL. He was too close to the barrel to shoot off like that and ran right by the first barrel. L said she had to laugh, my head rotated all the way by the barrel. *I* was looking where I needed to go...Spooks...Not so much.

He recovered well though and the rest of the run was good. Spooks is struggling just a bit coming out of 2nd barrel yet and is losing time there, but his 3rd barrel was perfect and he really ran home.

I don't plan on doing anything different with Spooks than what we are doing yet. He is so green still, that it would be senseless to keep getting after him with the bat or do any kind of massive training overhaul. With just a dozen runs on him, I think he is doing pretty darned awesome to be as consistent as he has been. He placed 4th in the 4D, but didn't pick up a check this time. That little run by cost us a couple of 10ths, but we still picked up points.

I walked him out til the next rake and then went and got on Moon. The night air had cooled off, Moon had a good nap after his massage and he was full of himself.

I took him out on the racetrack and once he was loose and limber...We loped. I actually wanted him to come down a bit. I know Moon has been bored spitless this last couple of weeks and he was r.e.a.d.y. to be back to doing his job.

This was the first time since much earlier this year that I have felt him soooo amped up and we did have a problem getting in the gate. When Moon gets excited...he goes sideways. Some horses lunge forward, some horses have a hard time walking forward...Moon goes sideways. Luckily Megan was there on Frosty. Moon sucked up to Frosty...who is quite terrified of the dun horse, so he kept trying to leave. Moon kept trying to suck up to him. It was actually a bit humorous, since I know exactly what was going through each one of my horses' heads at the moment.

Moon is thinking..."I need a little security here."

Frosty is thinking, "OMG...That horse scares me, I gotta get out of here."

Frosty was trying to leave and Moon was stuck to his side like glue. I told Megan to just circle Frosty around again and when we came back by the gate, I just made Moon do a spin and he spun around through the gate. The gate man closed the gate and Moon stood there looking a bit confused. He was facing the wrong way though. I wasn't quite sure how to get him in position. I knew if I turned him to the right he was going to spin around and take off for the barrel, but I wasn't quite sure he had the barrel located. I didn't want him to run off wildly out of position. I finally backed him up and did a 45 degree pivot to the left and walked him a few steps down the fence. He turned his head and saw the barrels, so I rolled him back on the fence and made him travel back to the center of the gate. He was looking to the right, locating that barrel and when he got in position, I let him pivot and leave.

He was off with both rocket launchers firing. He was flying!!

He run up to the first barrel in perfect form, I sat down and gave him his 'hup, hup' and he set into that barrel and turned it without a single misstep. If felt freaking awesome! Moon popped me forward at the exact perfect time and I knew we had 2nd in the bag and was going to make an incredible run...

And then I tried to sit up...

But I couldn't!

Something jerked me back down over Moon's withers.

Ohhhh.....

Nooooooo.....

When Moon popped me forward, my belt went over the saddlehorn and I was hooked.

I wasn't quite half way across the arena yet, but Moon was rolling and I knew if I didn't get myself unhooked quick, Moon might make me a lawn dart when he turned the barrel. I leaned forward and yanked on the belt a couple of times, but it wan't coming off the horn.

All of the sudden 2nd barrel was right there, Moon was running straight for it, I'm laying over his neck, can't get my arm over enough to move him over, can't get unhooked, can't even get him pulled up.

I had to pull him around to my left leg. Thankfully, Moon had realized something was not right by then and had slowed down before I pulled him around, but I still almost took a header off the right side. I was practically hanging upside down in the saddle. My belt popped off the horn then. Imagine that! (she says with dry sarcasm)

Of course nobody realized what the problem was until I got Moon stopped and was sitting in the middle of him again. The girls in the crows nest called down to see if I was okay. By then I was laughing my butt off...I think mostly out of half-hysteria. I hollered up at them I had gotten stuck on the saddlehorn and gave them a thumbs up.

Moon didn't seem particularly upset, but I asked if I could trot him through the pattern so he didn't have that ducking off incident left in his mind. I long-trotted him back around 1st barrel and let him about 1/2 run to and around 2nd and 3rd. He handled that fine, so we dropped to a trot back to home.

Unfortunately, that little misshap cost more than a just a bit of embarrassment. This particular association runs an 'Award Series' throughout the season. To qualify, you have to run in 4 of 6 selected races. They average your 4 best times and give out some nice prizes. Moon and I were sitting right in there in the average. All we needed was for this run to be a good one.

I guess there is always next year. ;-)

To be continued...

At The Risk Of...

2011-08-16T17:43:00.003-06:00

Making everyone hate me....

I mentioned to My Honey a few weeks ago, that considering all of the cars he is collecting...

We didn't have a single convertible.

Now we do...

It's a custom 1927T Street Rod with a 350, V8 engine. It does have a snap-on rag top, but there are no side windows, so even with the top on, your gonna feel the wind in your hair. ;-)

Now to be fair...When MH told me about the car...It wasn't exactly what I had in mind. :-/

How quickly my mind did change when he came roaring in the yard with it to actually show it to me and take it for a test drive.

My barrel racing buddy, L and I are going to take it to brunch tomorrow. I can't wait.

Define Irony...

2011-08-13T16:48:00.005-06:00

Soooo...I started on Spooks earlier this year...put all of the conditioning, training and effort into him. I knew after a couple of runs that he was never going to be a 1D barrel horse. Not a snowball's chance in hades. But he was patterning nicely and he tries.

So I told Megan to run him in the youth division. From the first one, she started picking up 3D checks on him (three seconds off the fast youth time).

Megan flaked out on me again this summer, much to my dismay as in very short order she was leading the 3D in points on him and could have easily won a buckle for the little effort it required to go to the races and ride the horse...:(

Since Moon has been out of the last few runs, I decided that even though I didn't think Spooks had much in the speed department, that at least I had a horse that was capable of running a nice pattern, so I might as well haul him and run him. It would be good for me to stay in practice and maybe I could work on a few things.

Who knew the darned horse would draw a check regularly or collect so many points?

I've run him 3 times, which counted toward 5 races (2 were carry-over times), he's won $130 and garnered 8 points in one association and 6 in another association.

Now granted...he is running 4D times, which means he is at least 2 seconds slower than the fastest times, but between Megan and I running him this year, he only has 10 competition runs. I couldn't be more pleased with his consistency. He may never burn a hole in the wind, but he is sure enough a fun ride...

(Not so happy with the i-phone videos. They look crystal clear on the phone....not so much on the 'puter.)

Oh yea and Spooks is my 'lefty' horse, my video person forgot that. LOL. Because he had trouble with his left lead when I started riding him at the beginning of this year, I started patterning him to the left barrel first. He could auto change from his left to his right lead, but not from his right to his left lead. When he got good with his left lead, I tried to switch him to running to his right barrel first, but he wasn't getting it, so I reverted back to the left barrel first and will keep him that way now.

Almost There ??

2011-08-11T19:45:00.004-06:00

It would seem that Moon is almost 'all better'. I have not ridden him since last week. Ponied him a lightly every other day and keep checking for soreness along his spine. One time I will get no reaction, the next time I would. A little massage with some Sore-No-More and he comes right out of it.

I have kept him up all of this time in a big pen and just let him loose to graze in the yard. The chiro didn't want him traipsing around the pasture until the inflammation was out of that muscle. I did respect the chiro's wish for me NOT to use DMSO on him, for one simple reason (that made sense to me)...The heat from the DMSO would relax the muscles and increase the circulation to that area, promoting healing...however, if Moon's vertebrae didn't want to stay in, the relaxed muscle would allow it to pop out.

Okay then.

However, Moon is not a horse that particularly likes to be penned up for very long. After a week...he was getting pretty antsy...even though I eased up on his feed a little bit, got him a little exercise and gave him the opportunity to graze on the luscious, but useless yard grass. So the other night, I finally had to let him out in the pasture...alone. He did nothing more than wander around and graze. He's not much for 'playing', even if the other horses are out. I was more worried about the mean-ass taking after someone and re-injuring himself being a jerk than being a spaz.

It's safe to say that Moon is a very unhappy camper. He was thriving in competition mode, probably the happiest I have ever seen him and this lay-off is pissing him right the heck off. He's as ornery as I have ever seen him. Crabby toward me and flat out mean as heck to anything else that gets near him.

This morning, I thought I would take him over to L's and put a light ride on him.

No dice. I got reaction when I stroked that muscle. It seems to be very localized and it didn't take long for me to massage the tenderness out, but I decided not to ride...just yet.

I do think that we are beyond the possibility of the vertebrae popping back out and so this evening, I hosed him down and applied DMSO to his loin and hips.

There is a barrel race this weekend, but I will not be taking Moon. I don't think he is 100% yet and what I am really gearing toward is a big race in UT in a couple of weeks. There is no time for set-backs by insisting on competing.

I thought I would give him time to heal naturally, so did not schedule a G3-electromagnetic therapy for him this last week. Since he is taking longer to heal than I anticipated...I most likely will have a treatment done to him this coming week and see if that does not get him back on track. If for no other reason than to be able to get him back into working mode, even if that does not mean I can compete on him until the big race. Hopefully that will improve his disposition.

Almost Caught Up

2011-08-10T21:26:00.003-06:00

Generally, there is only two times a year that I get the cleaning bug...

Spring...

And Fall...

It seems a little early to have the Fall cleaning urge hit, but it has.

I just have a couple of areas left to get after, but if I keep up this pace...by the time real Fall hits...I won't have anything to do but a little winterization. I can ride to my heart's content when the weather gets beautiful again.

I think I will even get a couple of projects I had planned on waiting 'til next Spring done. A friend's husband has had a lot of time off lately and I asked if he would be interested in some day labor work. I just don't have a clue when it comes to getting my irrigation in order...well, I have a clue, but I'm not that enthused about having to do it all by myself...so he will be coming over next week to take a look at everything. Hopefully, we will get the drainage trenches dug out and new pipe installed so I can properly irrigate these last couple of months. If that be the case, then I am going to have another friend come over, tear most of the pasture up and have it reseeded. I do plan on leaving 5 acres alone so I have a place to turn horses out this winter While they are at it, I am going to have them leave an arena sized area unplanted. I'm not all that concerned about getting an actual arena put up...it's not like I actually need a fence around my riding area. I just need a decent place to set my patterns up and work my horses.

It took the contractor we hired...TWO....months to get the roof replaced and doors on my little 2-stall barn...but he finally got it done. Now I just need to get the rest of the junk out of there, pack some dirt in the stalls and around the foundation and get my pens set up so the horses I put in there can have indoor/outdoor access.

I am hoping my friend's husband is going to put a loafing shed up for me as well. The aforementioned...slow as molasses...contractor was supposed to build it, but I was so irritated by his lack of work ethic by the time he got my barn done...I ixnayed having him do any other work. Slow might not have been so bad...but my husband TOLD the guy it was MY barn and to do whatever *I* wanted done on it. Every time the guy had a question, he would hang around until MH showed up and beeline it to him to see if it was 'okay' to do what I asked him to do. MH finally got mad at the guy and told him to, "Stop It. The barn was none of his (my husband's) business." The guy got the hint and stopped bothering MH. He must have known he messed up badly because he didn't even bother to ask about the other work we had initially asked him if he was interested in doing. Not very smart in this economy to screw yourself out of about $10,000 worth of work (shakes head in disgust).

Instead, I have another contractor lined up to do the repairs on the exterior of the house. New windows, screen doors, trim and gutters, along with replacing some shingles on the house and reshingling my storage shed. I really, really want to get that work done this year as well as get the house sprayed with stucco and painted before another winter. Our heating costs weren't horrible last year, but they could be improved on.

Sometimes I don't think we have even made a dent in the to-do list around here, but the other night we ran into one our neighbors and he praised us on how much better this place looks. I guess this place used to be quite beautiful. We have not come close to restoring it to it's former glory, but I guess we have made a noticeable dent.

(Sorry...I keep meaning to take pictures...but really not that interesting...just piles of weeds I have pulled, cleaning pens, watering trees and getting the mowing all done up.)

The Dentist Cometh

2011-08-09T19:58:00.000-06:00

One more thing to check off the list this morning. The equine dentist was out to work on a few of the boys.

Moon is an annual job...
Although I no longer get to call him a 'scissor' mouth. Yaayyyyy! The dentist says his mouth is plumb normal now and he just touched him up a bit.

Turk's teeth were done 2 years ago and last year when I had the dentist out, he said he still looked good and didn't even touch him...
This year, he worked on leveling his front teeth a bit and took off the beginning of a hook in the back. Other than that...not much to work on.

And then there was Frosty...
I had Frosty done by a local veterinarian...not the vet I use now...and I KNEW he did a shit job on the horse's teeth. I was so pissed over that deal, I have never used that vet for anything since then. First of all that vet decided he couldn't float Frosty's teeth at his clinic (because he does not have a large animal room), so he had me haul him up to where I used to board horses...for his convenience mind you...and charged me a farm fee. Jerk! Second...I warned him that Frosty's mother had been very susceptible to drugs and I suspected Frosty would be the same...Did he listen?

Oh hell no. He just gave him a 'normal' dose and about knocked my horse to the ground. The vet tech and I literally held the horse up so the vet could work on his teeth.

And he did a very piss poor job on Frosty's teeth.

The dentist I use now said Frosty had very sharp edges, his grinding action was off and the vet that did the work previously didn't even put in bottom bit seats. He put in top ones...but not bottom ones? What a maroon.

However, Frosty has a good mouth and good teeth, so it didn't take long to remove the shoddy work the vet had done. The dentist asked if he could come back and check him in 6 months to make sure there was no residual incorrect wear. He may or may not need a touch-up then.

And what do you know...this dentist actually listened to me when I told him the horse was susceptible to the drugs and only gave him a 1/2 a dose. He said next time, he probably won't even have to give him that much. Frosty is a light-weight.

While I knew these guys were due to be worked on anyway, one of the underlying reasons for having Turk and Frosty done was because both horses have some poll rigidity and the chiro recommended having acupuncture done on them to help relax those muscles so he could get a good adjustment. Well, poll rigidity can come from the teeth being out of whack as well, so I like to start with making sure the teeth are good before moving on to other stuff.

In about a week I will know if I need to proceed with additional work or if getting the teeth done relieves a lot of the poll tension. Moon and Turk's work was so slight that they will both be fine to ride by tomorrow. Frosty may need an additional day, but then it will be back to work as usual for him.

Today's Haul

2011-08-07T15:30:00.003-06:00

Those of you who are fellow garderners know the good feeling you get when you first start to harvest from the plants you have so carefully tended...barring bad weather and/or a poor growing season (as I know some of you have suffered that this year)....

But it doesn't take long and before you know it, you are pulling hauls like this...
Which happens to be my Sunday morning gather.

Lord have mercy...

This was Friday's gather...

My counters are stacked with veggies!

I seriously need to get out my canning/freezing books and start to get some of this stuff stored.

I had fun running Spooks at the barrel racings this weekend. He did good...nice, smooth patterns...and we even won some money in the 4D. I'm glad I went. I took Frosty as well and he got rode both days. I didn't get much of a chance to practice pattern him on Friday night. I kind of waited 'til most everyone had done their thing and left. I was just getting ready to start working him on the pattern when this other gal came barging in and kept cutting me off as I was trying to get to 1st barrel. Since I was planning on spending the night at the arena...to save mileage getting to the race the next day...I thought I would let her have a couple of go's.

But she just kept going and going and going...

Finally I got irritated and the last time she cut me off, I told her it was my turn...she had had ample time on the pattern...and it wasn't getting any better (she was headed for a wreck and anytime someone is knocking over barrel after barrel at a lope...they need to quit cause they are not helping themselves or their horse). I got a couple of turns on the pattern (along with some dirty looks-LOL) and then they turned the lights out.

Oh well...I got up early the next morning and got to enjoy riding with L (her and her husband stayed over as well)..and we had the entire facility to ourselves. Frosty was struggling a little on the pattern...he's really starting to look for those barrels...so he is wanting to kick his hind end out and pick up the wrong lead...it's a perfectly normal thing to have a green horse do, so we just slowed it down again...got his body squared up and didn't make a big deal about it. By the end of the session, I think he was about as soft-bodied and minded as I have ever felt him. He's coming along nicely, so we left it at that for the weekend. I am in no hurry to push him to run in competition...I just want soft, relaxed and completely comfortable and confident. I have doubt when he gets to that point, we will be able to crack open a run and people will wonder where I have been hiding him. ;-)

After my run on Saturday, I rushed home to shower and get 'girlie' to go to the Mule Deer Banquet with My Honey. Sometimes it sure feels good to get out of working clothes, put a little make-up on, a pair of high heels and get out on the town. We didn't win any cool door prizes or buy any guns this time, but I saw this and HAD to have it...
(Okay...what I was hoping for was that it wouldn't go for an exorbitant amount and I might be able to get it.) It's a 3-4 y/o Buffalo Bull skull with the most beautiful artwork painted on it. I hope you guys can see how gorgeous the picture is...It was really hard to photograph...
It's just stunning work and I fell in love with it.

Well obviously My Honey bought it for me...but I couldn't believe no one else was bidding on it. Lucky for us I guess. It's going to look awesome hanging next to MH's buffalo head mount. I just need to take the tacky fake eagle feathers out and put some real ones on it. ;-)

Vet Out

2011-08-05T09:55:00.003-06:00

I just couldn't bring myself to be overly enthused about hauling 2-1/2 hours to make a courtesy 'lope' around the barrel pattern tonight, so I pulled out the rulebook and perused the 'vet out' section. I was trying to decide what was going to save me the most financially.

If I 'turned out' it would cost me Entry Fee + Office Charge, but I would save gas money (and a day).

If I 'vetted out', I was told by someone it would cost me, $50 + Office Charge...but...You need a vet release to fax to the main office as well. I figured the cost of hauling Moon to the vet to obtain the release would be at least another $40, but probably $60.

Luckily, I was talking to L this morning (crying in my coffee cup ;-) and she told me to call the main office and ask if they would accept a release from my chiro. Huh...that never dawned on me...Probably because chiro is 'one of those things' and not all places recognize them as valid practitioners.

So I did...they WILL accept a release from a chiro.

Yippeee!!!

Total cost to 'vet out' = $14. (Lord knows where that someone came up with the extra $50 charge?...Good thing I resorted to the actual rule book.)

Sooooo....

I feel better about that. (Not that I was going to run Moon anyway...in case anyone misreads and thinks that was my intention.)

But you know what?

I'm still going to run barrels this weekend. I am loading up the black horse and Frosty and we are heading the other direction. There are 2 runs this weekend that are much more 'Spooks' appropriate. Spooks might be able to place in the Open 4D and I will get some exhibition runs on Frosty.

Life gives ya Lemons...By god...I'm going to make me some Lemonade!

Not Exactly The Way I Had Planned

2011-08-04T15:11:00.003-06:00

Well...

Looks like I will be doing a courtesy run on Spooks on Friday.

The chiro worked on Moon on Monday, I ponied him on Tuesday morning, left him in the round pen because Beretta was out in the pasture and Moon likes to chase her. Ponied him on Wednesday and turned him out to pasture with the rest of the boys. I was poking around the yard all day, kind of keeping an eye on everyone because the chiro didn't want him chousing around, but all they did was wander around and graze. Got everyone up in the evening. Ran my hand across Moon's back and he about had a seizure.

(Lots of cussing)

I cold hosed him, DMSOed his loin and waited til morning to call the chiro.

Chiro shows up today...Frowns at Moon's reaction to pressure across the loin.

Checks him out, says he's not out, but he is not sure what is going on...and we all know what that means...

No way is he in any shape to run.

I talk to chiro about alternative remedies to ease the soreness...

He agrees icing his back is a good idea. No more DMSO though...heat may reduce the noticeability of the muscle reaction, but it brings the inflammation level up.

I asked him about having my farrier use his electromagnetic shock therapy machine on him and he agrees that would be a good idea. Acupuncture probably isn't the route to go.

Also, no more pasture turnout. The 50' round pen is plenty of space and the ground is nice and level.

Poor Spooks...he got stuck as back-up. I sure as hell know we aren't going to be winning any money...but oh well....I'll just give a little Queen Wave as he lopes his way through the pattern. ;-)

On a little better note, I went ahead and had the chiro check Beretta's hips while he was here and he got her leveled out really nicely. Beretta still travels a little 'off' once and awhile due to her hind fetlock injury, but the chiro thought if we adjusted her every 3-4 months, we could keep her hips leveled up nicely and hopefully improve her future outlook. I'm all for that because I sure do love my little girl...
Her chest has taken forever to go down...even with cold-hosing every day and alternating DMSO and External Rub. The vet said there wasn't anything he could do unless it developed a 'water bag' (mushy feeling). If it did that, he would come over and lance it. Well, actually he told me, *I* could lance it...to which I gagged at the thought of and told him, 'No Thanks...I was perfectly willing to pay him to come do that.' (Gak) So it has just had to slowly go down on it's own.

This next couple of weeks is going to be hell on the pocketbook...Equine dentist is coming, Electromagnetic therapy for Moon, Acupuncture for Frosty and Turk...to be followed by adjustments...I'm sure by then someone will need to have shoes reset....

Uggghhhh....when they talk about 'paying dues'....They literally mean paying dues!

Frosty's Turn

2011-08-03T17:00:00.000-06:00

Honestly, you would think that the way I go on and on about that silly dun horse of mine, he was the only one I've got...

Nawww...

He just kind of took over my brain this year. I told myself in January...This was it! Our do or die year!

It's taken a long time to find that 'happy' place...but I think we are there. Nothing but continued competition is going to finish getting us seasoned.

I didn't let everyone else go completely to pot, but I sure wasn't putting in the time on them that I had been earlier this year. They just kind of became nice distractions from thinking about the seriousness of competition all the time.

Seriousness vs. Fun...

Well, there is no question that I find competing fun. But obviously not in the same 'fun' way that it is to jump on a horse and tootle around bareback, ride out in the desert or poke around at a playday with friends. I do take competing very seriously, but in a 'I want to improve every chance I can' kind of way..Not a 'I need to/have to win some money' kind of way.

I started hauling other horses with me, mostly to get them exposed to the goings on at the competitions. Other horses, traffic, loudspeakers, the hauling, the standing tied, drinking out of buckets, eating out of hay bags...Pretty much all of the stuff that turns your 'World Champion At Home' into a frenzied, melting down mess in public.

Frosty sure enough had one of those episodes at a barrel race this year. I was quite mortified. But since then, he has been pretty good. I have learned how far I can push him and each time it gets better. We can actually sit amongst a group of horses now. Still no dice on having horses lope toward him...but his reaction has been reduced from spook and blow up to just a spook and whirl. The girls have been very decent about it and I am very careful not to get myself or them in the middle of a shitstorm.

All of the hauling has done wonders for the saggy-belly boy...

Sometimes I glance at him and think he is still kind of fat, but he's not. He's a big, solid gelding and that is all there is to it. He will continue to change and eventually look more fit, but I still think his system is not 100%. It obviously takes a long, long time to get a horse's system working properly after they have suffered a long bout with IR. He doesn't have a lot of stamina and his energy levels are a bit radical.

I did get shoes on him this year. First time he's ever had them and he was such a good boy about it. He has always been kind of platter-footed and IR made him very tender-footed, so I finally decided it was worth it to see if shoes would help. They have. He is getting much more supple in his shoulders and is back to using his hind-end like he is built to. The horse has no lack of booty on him...
and he has a much hock set than Moon. He is built to really drive from behind and get up underneath himself...when he wasn't doing that anymore...I knew something was not right.

He's riding a lot better and when I took him over to L's house to practice barrels on...she was amazed at how well he turned them. I knew he could turn a barrel...just haven't been able to spend the time with him like I should to bring him along. I'm hoping to stick with him the rest of this year and be able to compete on him at the NBHA runs. 'Compete' might be a misnomer because I won't be pushing for much more than to get him to be able to make a 4D run. That would mean he would be running 2 seconds slower than the top horses. Which is a pretty significant margin.

Now I don't know if Frosty is as fast as Moon in a straight line..I've only ever gotten him up to about 3rd gear and that was plenty fast for me...not knowing if he was going to stretch out and run or if he was going to suck back and buck me off and all...but I do know that the actual act of turning the barrel is a lot easier for him than it is for Moon...so it might be kind of close as to who will be Top Dog when Frosty actually does learn how to run.

Seasoning him is going to be the trick...whereas Moon sees and hears nothing that concerns him when he locks onto a barrel...I am doubtful Frosty will be as single-minded. I see spooks from the chutes and the grandstands and flags and noise in our future. I am just praying that we don't get the suck-back and blow-up reaction that he is so well known for. ;-)

**I wrote this post last night, but decided I wanted to wait to put a picture of the slimmer version of Frosty up and wouldn't ya know...He was a total shit this morning. Tried to blow up when I went to get on, so I lunged him for a little bit first. I am NOT afraid to use that lunge line with him. LOL...Ground is kind of hard this time of year. ;-) Ended up just going for a ride in the desert rather than get to practice him. I had to up his oats a little bit because he just did not have any energy in this heat. I guess it kicked in. LOL

The question may be when I start running him...Are they going to give me a time or a score?

LMAO

My New Hero

2011-08-01T22:36:00.004-06:00

To make a long story short...Moon was sore in his back again on Sunday after running 2 days in a row, so I called my barrel racing buddy and got the number to the other chiro she has used in the past. This guy is a manual manipulator. L had used him before but due to costs preferred the previous guy she recommended. At this point, I didn't give a flip what this guy cost. Something was up with my horse's back and it needed to be remedied. I was just praying that this guy was a valid manipulator because my experiences over the last 10 years has been that a lot of them 'claim' to be equine chiros and few ever manage to even get a single pop.

Lord have mercy and hallaluya!!! I have just found the best equine chiropractor I've been able to locate since I first stumbled on this phenomena back in 1999. I was spoiled you see. The very first equine chiro I ever used was one of the best in the country. Probably still is...I could ever find him. Last I heard he was somewhere in Texas. (Texas is a big damn state ya know. ;-)

Anyway...This guy located Moon's locked vertebrae in nothing flat. A couple of pushes and...pop! Has it back in.

He got a nice big pop in his right hip as well. He continues to go over Moon and gets a good pop out of his right shoulder. As he is working his neck, the chiro asks me if have trouble with our right turns. Uummmm..kinda...but I don't think it's so much Moon as it is me being late to the rate. He thought about that for a second and asked me if he traveled straight. Huh...now that has been something that has bothered me about Moon for a couple of years now...the darned horse constantly fades to the right when he is walking out in the open. I had him checked over by a vet/chiro last year and she didn't find much. The chiro braces himself and says, 'This should help.' and Whop! He gets a massive pop out of Moon's neck just in front of his shoulder. He says, 'I think he'll turn better for you now too.'

O.
M.
G....

This is the kind of chiro I have been looking for since my other guy disappeared!!! This guy can fix things...not dink around, pushing here and there and end up telling me that it will take several more treatments to get the horse right. Uuggghhhh...I am so sick of the 'wannabe's'.

Sooo...Moon's week will consist of being ponied for the next two days. If things are back to normal, I can ride on Thursday and haul to my only rodeo on Friday. If Moon still seems sore, the chiro will come out and re-adjust him on Thursday and I will have to ice (which has become part of my routine anyway because I think it works better than cold-hosing). He said either way, running one run on him isn't going to hurt anything. Next week, we will see how things are and go from there.

I know Moon did this on that Tuesday run 2 weeks ago. The damn ground was shallow and he stabbed those hind toes into the ground and gave himself a jolt. That's why I already had him scheduled to be shod...we figured out his hind fetlock tenderness was because he was stabbing his hind toes and not getting full flexion when he set to turn a barrel.

Well...all that is fixed now. Shoes on and adjustment accomplished. Moon was so relaxed after his adjustment, he just stood where I dropped his lead rope and went to sleep. Now that's the miracle of a good chiro!!

Sooo...as the chiro was writing up my bill...Amazingly it was only $70. I have paid twice that for some of those faux fixer-uppers (Uuggghhhhh)...I asked him if he was in a hurry or if he had time to take a look at another horse. He said sure, so I run and got Turk out of his pen. Turk is scheduled to have his front shoes reset tomorrow and of course, this morning, I notice that his G-shoe is loose. So he didn't get to go out to pasture with the big boys today, he got lawn-mower duty...
The chiro took one look at Turk and said, 'You have some issues going on with this horse.' That assessment just from watching the horse's demeanor. Awesome!!

I showed him Turk's foot and his shoe and a bit of the history of what we have done in the last year to get where we are. The chiro nodded, walked straight over to Turk's shoulders, lifted his right front leg (the injured hoof leg), got his hands on the horse's withers and gave a tug. Turk's shoulder gave a massive pop and he about bugged out. The chiro apologized to Turk for hurting him and told him to give it a minute and it would feel better. Not more than a minute or two later, Turk dropped his head and started licking his lips.

People like this fascinate me. They are sooooo good at what they do, so quick and efficient and so sure of the outcome. They truly have a gift.

The chiro got a big pop out of Turk's right hip, turned around and told me I shouldn't have as much trouble with him picking up his right lead anymore. My jaw just about dropped. I NEVER said a word about having to work at getting Turk to pick up his right lead.

The horse was too rigid in his poll to get the adjustment that he needed up there, so the chiro recommended that I have the other gal I use do acupuncture on him to see if those muscles can be relaxed enough for an adjustment. He said then he won't be as heavy on his front-end...Again with the jaw dropping. I never said anything about Turk being heavy on his front-end.

That's it...I have a full book of everyone I need...Veterinarian, Farrier, Dentist, Acupuncturist, Chiro. I am set. All I gotta do is feed 'em and ride 'em. I'm in freaking heaven!!!

On The Bubble

2011-07-31T10:18:00.002-06:00

I guess that's where you could say Moon and I are.

We are capable of making awesome runs...

If we can just keep it together.

So this last week, I spent riding and practicing with a friend. It was enlightening. She's an awesome barrel racer, a good horsewoman...and a real joy to spend time with.

One of the (many) things I have not been able to figure out lately is why Moon is running past 1st barrel. He's always had a really good 1st barrel...

That is until he started running to it a little faster. Sometimes we would get it...most of the time lately...not so much.

He still sets into it really well...he just overstrides on the back and then has to sort of rotate around to come out in the correct position.

If nothing else this year...it has been drilled into my head that if Moon makes mistakes...I'm usually the cause.

Rider error is about 99% of mistakes that happen during a barrel run. Rider error causes about 90% of habitual 'problems' horses start having during a run. The other 10% is due to some sort of pain issue with the horse that causes them to have to start compensating during their runs.

So when my friend (L)) asked me if I wanted to come over and ride with her, I jumped at the chance. Her opinion I trust and having a knowledgeable second set of eyes is like money in the bank. Literally!!

Now, when I say 'practice' I should make it clear...I do not do full practice runs on Moon. He doesn't need that anymore. What Moon needs is specific work, at specific spots in his run. Not that making full practice runs is bad...it depends on what works for the horse and where they are at. Moon acts like he is an easy going, dead-head...but he is far from being one. He can go from zero to stupid in nothing flat. So I keep practice work very quiet and very specific.

Since we were over-running 1st, I wanted to practice loping him up to first, bring his rate spot back a little farther and make him stop properly-hind end up under him, with a nice, straight body. Moon likes to lean into his right hand run to 1st a bit...okay...It used to be A LOT. Now it is just a little bit. Now when I feel him start to lean, I stop him, counter arc and lope off again in the correct lead. Upright body, hips underneath him.

The first thing L noticed was that I ride very forward (like you all have seen that in my videos-LOL). The second thing she noticed was that I was not sitting down in the saddle until I got right up to the rate spot. Then I would sit and ask for my 'pseudo' reining horse stop. Mostly I was feeling for the correct time in the stride to ask for the stop so that my horses would be properly gathered and stop on their hindquarters.

It's not just Moon I ride like this...it's all of my horses.

L told me to start sitting at least 2 strides earlier and to perhaps use a verbal cue (nod to kestrel because she mentioned this as well) to help my horses realize they needed to gather for the rate. So I tried it and of course my horses came to an errchy stop way too far back from their rate spot.

So L explained to me that needed to sit, give the verbal cue to rate and sort of push my horses forward at the same time, so that they just kind of glided into that rate spot.

Well, what do you know?

Once I got it figured out and the horses figured it out...Moon, Frosty and Turk were just crawling into their rate spots. Moon immediately picked up his strides around the turn, Turk tried like hell...That poor horse starts his turns so well, but is not yet capable of holding a frame all the way through the turn. Frosty is the one who impressed the heck out of me. Holy crap...Is he going to be a nice barrel horse. I have started putting some serious work into him and all I need him to do is figure out he needs to change his lead between 1st and 2nd barrel and he'll be ready to start running.

The only other thing Moon needs to have reinforced regularly is traveling and rating straight into his 2nd barrel. He still wants to shoulder that barrel somewhat, but with regular reinforcement (at slow speeds), counter arcing every time we stop at the rate spot and making him honor his pocket...he is not determined to smash into it anymore...mostly I have to concentrate really hard during a run that when we leave 1st barrel NOT to look AT the 2nd barrel, but to look at my pocket.

That specific, correct, precise practice and the hint about sitting earlier paid off on Friday night.

Moon ran the 2nd fastest time in the slack (I got stuck there because I entered the rodeo late due to not knowing how much time Moon would need off after his back spasm). It was a 17.63. The fast time was a 17.49. He was smoken'. We ended up 3rd after the performance runs. One gal snuck in there with a 17.58. So yea...we did not get outrun. That was still a nice check.

I wasn't very impressed with the ground at this rodeo. I watched the first 10 barrel racers and most of them were having problems with 1st. It just didn't look like their horses were setting into the ground. It was kind of shallow and somewhat cloddy so they were kind of skittering across the top. It didn't help a lot of them that 1st barrel was set very close to the bucking chute either. So my game plan was mostly to let Moon coast and really work on sitting earlier to see if we could improve our turns. It didn't feel like Moon was running at all. We just glided to 1st barrel, I sat a couple of strides earlier and gave him a 'hup, hup' and he whipped around that barrel in perfect form. Second and 3rd were exactly the same. When they announced our time...I was really surprised...cause like I said...it didn't feel like Moon was running. He was just effortless and didn't waste any time.

I'm hear to tell ya...the hardest thing in the world to follow is 'a good run'. I've had so many 'what the hell was that all about' runs, followed by some 'those were pretty decent but room to improve', followed by 'what the hell was that runs'. I was a nervous wreck on Saturday. For the life of me, I KNOW what I did on the first run...I just wasn't sure if I could do it again.

Moon was hotter than a firecracker on Saturday as well. I spent most of the waiting time, hand-walking him around and around the arena. He was walking all over the top of me, spooking at everything and just generally being a pain in the butt. When I got on, I stood him as far away as I dared and didn't take him into the entry area until the girl before me was running. I stood him at the back of the entry area next to the fence. Moon likes to have something...anything next to him when he is nervous...and boy was he nervous.

Yep, I know nerves from the rider pass to the horse. I am always very aware of that and don't pick up on the reins, make sure to keep my legs loose and don't squeeze my butt muscles. Sometimes it doesn't matter. I think more than anything Moon could sense that I wasn't mentally ready for this run and it was freaking him out.

When they opened the gate, Moon headed in, but kept ducking left, then right. He always kept moving forward...so it wasn't resistance to entering...he was just amped to the gourd. When we entered the arena, he would not turn his head to look at the 1st barrel. He just stuck his nose straight in the air. (I took his tie-down off after Montrose because he just wasn't clocking with it on...I could control him...but what difference does that make if he won't run?)

When he pivoted, he took a couple of trotting steps...saw first barrel and just shot off like a rocket. He was on that 1st barrel before I ever had a chance to sit down...and of course...blew it out. I knew at that point he was going to shoulder 2nd and I really started to get ahold of him. I shut him down a bunch, but kept him off that barrel. The rest of the run was fine.

I was trying really hard not to think about the average, but you know what...after Moon blew out 1st barrel...I knew we just needed to keep all of those barrels up and we would most likely pick up an average check. I safety'ed up. The thing is, it felt like Moon was running way harder this run than he did the other run...he never clocks when he feels like he is running hard. He looses that effortless stride that covers so much ground and makes good time.

He only ran an 18.01. There had already been a 17.10 and a 17.20. We were sitting 3rd after the slack, with 10 runners in the perf to go. I knew that 18.01 most likely wasn't going to hold up. That is just too big of a gap in times not to have some of those other girls slip in there. I was actually quite surprised that only 3 did. There was a 17.3, a 17.4 and a 17.63 in the perf and that was it. So we ended up with the 6th fastest time out of 45 barrel racers...which considering I thought our run was horrible...wasn't so bad after all.

I picked up a check for being 2nd in the 2D and ended up 2nd in the Average.

So ya know...I'm not really complaining. It was a lucrative weekend...finally.

I will say this...I think Moon and I have reached a break-over point...it's time to back off and make each run count. Moon is in there. He can finally run with the big kids...but he's not solid enough mentally to handle a bunch of back to back runs yet. Nor am I apparently.

I think the best course of action for awhile is go to my weekly local rodeo (there's not many left) on Tuesday and pick one run for the weekend. That gives us a chance to run...take a deep breath, relax a little and reinforce correctness before we run again.

A Legitimate Question

2011-07-29T10:12:00.002-06:00

I got this comment on my last post and happen to think it is a very legitimate question...

"Anonymous said...
*elephant in the corner*

If your horse is so sore you have to ice his back, and you're giving him bute ...

Isn't it time to take more than a week off?

Is bute legal in your local region? In many equestrian events, it's highly illegal to compete a horse on bute ..."

Believe me, when I saw Moon was lame...the very first thing that crossed my mind was if I was going to need to 'vet out' from the two rodeos I was entered in last weekend.

However, I was lucky this time as I noticed the lameness on Wednesday evening and wasn't up to run again until Friday night. Time was on my side to kind of figure things out.

Secondly, I am very fortunate that I have a host of professionals, who I trust, who are just a phone call away and I am very willing to haul my horse to them for examination. They know me well enough that they feel free to be brutally honest. I am not even going to lie...I have carefully networked and developed friendships in the local horse world. I am of the belief that if you want to be the best, you have to know the best. If even one of the three professionals that I had examine Moon before leaving for the rodeos had said, 'It's best if you don't run him.' I would have scratched my runs and paid my fines.

I have no doubt that as we keep going, there is going to come a time when that will be required...this just wasn't one of those times. Moon had a muscle spasm in his back and THIS time, bute was used in an appropriate manner.

I haven't given a horse bute in over a decade, until this incident and Moon only got 2 doses. I am not a believer in dosing my horses with bute every time they get a little sore or get a little boo-boo. Pain/soreness is an indicator to both me and the horse. I think one of the worst things you can do to a horse that is injured is kill the pain. Then they don't know they are hurt and will often do more damage to themselves rather than use some caution. There is a ton of items on the market that have anti-inflammatory properties or promote healing without actually numbing the horse's pain.

Soreness is another matter...you need to find the root. I already knew the likely cause of what caused Moon's muscle spasm...which is a post in itself. That was hopefully fixed by the farrier.

As for time off...Well...I never had any intention of 'not riding' Moon when I said we needed a week off. I meant I was going to skip the local rodeo on Tuesday and not enter the weekend rodeo. With the heat and so much traveling...both Moon and I were feeling a little limp. Riding, however is my best indicator of how Moon feels and since he no longer had any back pain by Saturday morning, the soreness issue was pretty much mute.

I gave Moon Sunday off and let him loaf in the pasture. Monday, I rode and he felt fine. Tuesday...

He was back on fire and rearing to go. I was actually quite disappointed I had not entered the Tuesday rodeo. Oh well, we spent the week riding with a friend, working on patterning, my timing in the runs and riding in the desert. It was a great week. Moon felt awesome and I got a lot of good insight.

Now mind you, the horse was given 2 doses of bute. One dose on the Friday before at 5 pm and one dose on Saturday morning at 5 am. There was no way there was anything left in his system by Tuesday morning that would have numbed any pain he was in. He was just back to himself and moreso than ever. Hey...with a horse that is rearing to go...you don't waste a weekend sitting at home...I ended the weekend rodeo late and we will be running.

As for the 'is bute legal' question...

Rodeo does not test. EVER...for any drug...in any region...or any association. Nor does the NBHA (to my knowledge).

You'll most likely never get any either. Unlike horse shows/associations, rodeo is based on the winnings of the person, not the horse they ride. Now that being said, 'Rodeo' is far more interested in promoting the humane treatment of the animals people use to compete than most horse shows I've been to. If I was to yank and jerk on a horse at a rodeo, like what is common to see in a horse show warm-up pen, I would most likely be fined and if it became a pattern...kicked out of the association. Physical abuse is not tolerated at rodeos, in the arena or back at the trailer. What you do to keep your horse performing however...is your business. If you are stupid enough to want to ruin your horse for that 'one run' then they aren't going to say anything.

Now I am sure that people will disagree with what constitutes 'physical abuse'. Just because someone is rougher than their horse than you would be with yours does not mean the horse is abused. Just because someone uses a stronger bit than what you use, does not mean the horse is abused. But...if you see someone at a rodeo recklessly/repeatedly yanking, spurring or whipping a horse, all you have to do is get someone else to witness the actions with you and turn them in at the office. It's as easy as that. Put up your complaint or shut up about it.

Considering the number of 'legal' drugs that a person can use on a horse in the show world to keep a horse going...I do find it ironic that bute is considered 'bad'. I mean, I know the reason behind it...You can make a 3-legged lame horse appear to be sound with the use of bute...but in the grand scheme of things...it's far less disturbing than the lengths I KNOW the show world goes to to keep a horse going.

There is also a large number of products on the market that have the same properties as bute and the ads specifically say...'Will Not Test'...so just because someone is not using one product...does not mean they are not using another.

I guess the base line is-this time I had the luxury of a couple of days before hand to figure out what was going on with my horse. I consulted 3 professionals (talked to a couple others), my horse was sound before I left and completely fine by the next morning...he wasn't sore after the bute wore off and is back to his normal self (and then some).

I'm okay with the decision I made. Particularly since I think the bute and ice is what got the spasm out of Moon's back without any residual soreness. Hopefully that answers your questions Anon and I sure didn't mind that you asked them.

Tired...

2011-07-25T10:10:00.000-06:00

Moon and I are tired. This has been a long season already, lots of runs, lots of changes and I think both of us need a break.

In spite of the drama before we left for the rodeos, Moon performed. Not up to his usual standards. At Montrose he did not fire and even though he had a nice, solid run, we were no where near being in the top.

The vet told me to give him 2 grams of Bute before we left for Montrose and when I got there to put a bag of ice on his back and leave it there until it melted or I had to saddle up....
This is funny....I no sooner got Moon's ice pack situated and strapped down and this lady come running up out of nowhere and asked me, 'What's wrong with your horse?'

I was kind of startled. I have no idea where she came from. I was parked way in the back along the horse track and had Moon on the off side of the trailer. I wasn't hiding him or anything...there were horses tied to another trailer beside me and this way he was out of the way.

I told her his back was sore and I needed to ice it. She stood there watching me for the longest time. It was a little un-nerving, but kind of funny. She never said anything else to me, so I just kept going about my business and the next time I looked over, she was gone. I have no idea what that was about. I'm not really an anti-social person. I'll talk to anyone who wants to talk to me...unless I determine they are a dumb-ass and then I'm done...but I find a lot of people exceptionally strange these days.

My Honey and I spent the night in Montrose and left for Norwood bright and early the next morning. I was up in the slack at 9 a.m. and was the 'gunner' (first runner).

I gave Moon 2 more grams of bute, even though he showed absolutely no soreness. I wasn't sure if the up and down, twisty mountain roads would cause him to sore up again or not, so better to be safe than sorry at that point.

Moon was definitely awake at Norwood. But I was disappointed in the ground. They didn't water the ground until after 8 a.m. and they got a little carried away. Even after the ground was worked, I knew it was going to be slow. It just looked and felt sticky. It sure was, Moon got hung on both his 1st and 2nd barrels...

The big blow-out at 3rd barrel was totally my fault. I carried my bat with me to encourage Moon to run a little harder to 1st and for some ungodly reason, did not switch it from my left to my right hand. I'm just not used to carrying a bat anymore I guess. When Moon went to set into the 3rd barrel, I tipped my hand, Moon saw the bat right there by his eye and just blew away from it. I was like, 'What the hell?', realized he was spooking from the bat, dropped my hand and he took off running again.

One thing I really noticed in this video and sort of felt the last few runs, was the fact that Moon's strides are off in his turns. He's kind of scrambling and getting a lot of hang time. Surprisingly, considering the big blow out at 3rd, we ended up having one of the top times in slack, but the performance runs the night before had been quite a bit faster, so we we still nowhere near the top.

It's just time to skip a week of running and go back to the practice pen. Moon needs to find his strides in the turn again and we both need a chance to get our fire back.

That Cussing You Hear...

2011-07-21T21:33:00.002-06:00

...Is me having one of the worst weeks e.v.e.rrrrrrrr!

First my phone disappears...

(So if I used to have your number, I no longer do...Yes...I am one of those techno idiots who didn't back up my numbers. So if you want me to have your number again...please email it to me.)

Then Bob dies...

I go pick up the sorrel horse from the trainer...
He looks good huh? Even with all of his 'war paint' on...I know he's been ridden, but he never did get ridden outside. The WHOLE freaking reason I sent him to the trainer. Trainer's reason for NOT riding him out in the desert?

He's barefoot!

(I'm not even go there. I was afraid if I opened my mouth...It would be ugly from the first word. I just loaded my horse and left.)

Massive family drama...that went on for dayyyyyyssssssss!

(I seriously thought about driving off and disappearing. I daydream like that sometimes. I do NOT do drama.)

I ran at Rimrock on Tuesday. Moon didn't feel right during warm-up. He was not lame and I could not find any indicators of what was wrong. He just did not feel like...'Moon'. But he ran well. Pilot error caused a blow-by on 1st barrel. We placed 4th...They only paid 3 places.

I decided it was time to go ahead with the shoes...I'll explain that more in detail later...

However...I always turn Moon out to pasture after a run. I think it alleviates a lot of muscle stiffening/soreness if a horse gets a chance to keep moving. Because I knew I was getting shoes on Moon the next morning, I decided to just let him have a day off and let him loaf in the pasture with the rest of the herd. That evening when I went to get him up for grain, he was lame.

Left hip.

Since it was too late to do anything about it that night and I knew my farrier would be able to help me pinpoint what was going on...I just left him out for the night.

He was much better this morning, but still 'off'. The farrier determined he was out in his mid-back and sore all the way over his left hip to his hock. Had the farrier go a head and shoe him.

(Oh great...I'm entered in two rodeos this weekend and I immediately start wondering if I need to 'vet out'.)

Went with event shoes on the front...

And plains on the back...

I called a friend, got her equine chiro's number and scheduled an appointment for Moon. Figuring worst case scenario, I can have him worked on, see what he is like in the morning and then decide if I need to have my vet give me a vet release so I can vet out of the rodeos.

Chiro agrees to see Moon, but it won't be til late in the evening. I bring Moon home. Gather the rest of the herd from the pasture and find that the scrape Turk picked up last weekend has causes his whole lower leg to swell...
Seriously, it was not that big of a scrape and I swabbed it with Swat to keep the flies out before turning him out.

So that needed cold-hosed and doctored.

Before doing that, I go catch Beretta so she can go out to pasture and graze for a few hours and find this...
Really? It hardly seem possible that I did not notice THAT this morning. I did notice she had a scrape on her chest this morning...so it went from that to THIS in a matter of a few hours?

I have no idea...My only guess is that she ran into the pipe fence?

At what...Mach 10?

Uggghhhh!

I said to hell with it and turned her out on pasture for a few hours. Movement usually helps these things go down. When I got her in this evening I cold-hosed it and rubbed it down with External Rub. I guess I will have to see what it looks like tomorrow and may have to get the vet out for two horses.

Loaded Moon up...again...took him to the equine chiro and had him worked over. If you could call it that. I didn't even to think to ask my friend if the chiro manually manipulated or used mallets. I don't think the mallet crap works worth a shit and of course that is what this guy uses. Hell...I could go buy myself a couple of rubber mallets and tap on my own horses muscles for all that effort seemed worth...and it cost me $60. I was nice though. My bad for not asking and he was kind enough to get me in on an emergency.

On the way home I called my farrier. We are going to see what Moon feels like in the morning and if he is still sore, the farrier swears he can use his electromagnetic machine and fix him up. I should have just had him do that this morning.

So I get home and get to cold hose my 3rd horse of the day. I figured the best thing to do at this point was cold hose him...
And DMSO his back, hips and hocks.

I don't know what Moon did to his back. I'm guessing he was just getting sore already (which I attributed to his feet) and running on Tuesday was the one run too much.

R.I.P. Bob

2011-07-19T11:08:00.002-06:00

Baby Bob did not make it.

Darn it!

I thought he looked a little to docile last night and his poop didn't look the same.

He lasted days longer than I ever thought he would and seemed to be thriving up until last night.

Poor little guy.

This Aughta Get Good Now...

2011-07-16T21:47:00.003-06:00

Okay...so bear with me...

I didn't win a dime this weekend. Had 2 nice enough runs, almost identical times, both of which fell in the crack of 'win nothing'.

Here's the links to the videos if you want to watch them...

Delta

Hotchkiss

If you happen to watch the videos...At Hotchkiss I opted to carry a bat. Normally I don't...Moon hasn't really needed any encouragement to run, but I wanted to see if I couldn't get him to power out of first a little bit. He really doesn't stretch out and start running until a couple of strides out of 1st, which kind of makes that straightaway a bit difficult to ride. I figured if I could get him to power up a little sooner, he would be lined out and taking 2nd would be easier. He really does turn better when he is running harder vs. when he is just coasting along. My bat has a big popper on it. It makes a lot of noise, but that's about it.

BTW...The tie-down is working very well for us. I have the adjustment just right now. Moon is using it to balance on and really starting to drive into his barrels better. I think the polo wraps are helping to. He just seems so much more comfortable driving into his pockets and is staying a lot more gathered up.

Anyway...I was quite disappointed that our time was not faster at Hotchkiss. It felt like a really nice, smooth run. I knew that Moon got a little hung at 3rd, but a lot of horses did. The ground was a bit sticky for everyone.

I did something I usually don't do...won't do it again...but it was worth it. I think!

At NBHA runs...some days they have Double Headers. Two runs on the same day. When you enter, you have the option of entering one or both barrel races. If you enter both barrel races, you have the option of carrying your time from the first run over to the second barrel race. You still pay 2 entry fees, but only have to put one run on your horse. If you have a great run...it's to your benefit. If you knock a barrel, you are out in both of the runs. So that is No Bueno!

Normally I carry over, because I am not fond of running my horses back to back, unless they are very green and basically long loping the pattern....or very solid and can make the same run time after time without it messing with their head. Moon is neither. He's still figuring a lot of this running business out...Me too.

I mentally debated the pros and cons of running two times in one day, but I ignored my trepidation of running twice in one day...I wanted to know if Moon would run faster on a 2nd run than he has been on his first. Sometimes it does work to bring the 'fire' level up and helps them to figure out they need to run a bit harder.

My friends have been telling me that I am NOT running to 1st very fast. To me, it feels like Moon is really starting to stretch out and run a little harder than before. So really the goal was to just ride through the gate and let him go.

And GO he did. When we went through that gate and I gave Moon his head, it felt like someone punched the rocket launcher button.

Hoooo-llleeeeee.....CRAP!

What I thought was 'running' before...

Not even close!

I wished I could say the run was a stunning success and we took major time off...

But...No!

Not this time. As is always, when Moon turns it up a notch...or five in this case...I always seem to get left behind.

Moon ran into 1st so hard and whipped around that barrel so damn fast...

I literally was hanging onto the horn with both hands and clutching with all my might. I blew both stirrups too. I mean, he whipped me like I was a rag doll. NOW I am going to need rubber bands!

I HAD NO IDEA that was coming.

It was sooooo stinking close to being the start of a fabulous run, but I had no stirrups, was trying to get my reins gathered up again and damned if Moon didn't almost make it around 2nd all on his own. I think if I could have just got my balance and gone with him, he would have finished that run all by himself, without tipping a barrel. It was just me flopping around that messed him up.

I didn't even care...

Cause....Holy Moly...I'll be ready for him next time and if he runs like that...

We ARE going to be in the money.

BTW-The baby bird is still hanging in there. Tough little sucker. We named him Bob.

Because he has such a bobble head. LOL

I Feel Like Mike

2011-07-14T18:49:00.004-06:00

Mikey that is...LOL

It's been hectic. I'm just not as good as she is about bringing it to life.

Dead lawn mowers.

Horses in the garden.

Irrigation woes.

Nursing baby birds. We lost one unfortunately, but the other seems to be holding his own so far.

Put off picking up my sorrel horse til Monday.

Need hay.

Been to the farrier.

The summer heat is back.

And now we are off to a couple of barrel racings.

(Yep...baby bird too.)

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

More Rescues...Baby Birds

2011-07-13T23:03:00.003-06:00

We had a particularly violent thunderstorm roll over us this afternoon and when I went out later in the evening to do chores and pick up all of the downed tree branches, I found the remnants of a nest....and then I found the babies scattered about. I thought they were all dead, which always makes me sad to see. Poor little featherless things. I started picking up the little bodies to dispose of, thinking they were all dead...and one moved.

Crap!

One was dead for sure, another I wasn't so sure about and two more had the faintest of movements. They were all ice cold.

Poor little things.

So I grabbed the 3, ran into the house, bundled them in a hand-towel, warmed another one in the microwave and bundled the warm towel around them.

I have this 'thing' I guess, I hate to see anything die cold and miserable. I doubted any of them would survive, but at least they would be warm when they died.

Right?

Is it weird to think that way?

Well, the one did not warm up. He was dead.

But, at this moment, I have two little cheepers, bundled in their towel, quietly cheeping in their sleep.

Now what the heck do I do with them?...

Ya know...this is how we got stuck with a crazy-ass squirrel as a 'pet'. Now I have to figure out how/what to feed two tiny little birds?

Any one know?

The freaking veterinarian is going to think I am crazy as hell when I go in and ask him what to feed helpless baby birds.

Crap! Double Crap!!

Back To That 3/10ths

2011-07-12T22:10:00.003-06:00

Edited to add: We ended up 1/2 a second off, but won the 2D. I'll take that. Money is money. LOL

I ran at Rimrock this afternoon to see how Moon would handle running with the adjustments I talked about in the previous post. While it wasn't the smoothest run, we are back to being 3/10ths off the top times.

This time around...I'm not going to whine about it.

Moon definitely struggled a bit since he couldn't get his nose stuck out there, but I felt more in control again. I also did not get sucked down over his front-end. Once he figures out how to rebalance himself, he should go back to making smooth runs or if he softens back up, I may be able to take the tie-down off again. He's still leaning a lot going into his barrels, so it will probably be a few runs before he figures out he needs to get stood back up and run up to the barrel and turn it vs. careening toward it with his shoulder down and wanting to dive around it.

Man...I know better than to try to push my hat back down too...I've told Meg several times...let the darned thing go if it starts to come off. But it's just kind of instinct when you feel it coming loose. That's why we blew out 3rd barrel. I reached up and shoved my hat back down. I had my hatpins in my hand at the gate and darned if I didn't set them on the ground to adjust Moon's bell boot. Got back on and when they called my name, I realized I hadn't pinned my hat down. Too late by then, so I just went with it. I really need to get in the habit of wearing my hat every run, so I don't forget things like that.

One of my friends ran smack dab into 2nd barrel and laid her knee wide open. I am so fortunate that for all of the messed up turns Moon and I have made, that neither of us have ever hurt ourselves whacking a barrel.

A Few Things I Learned

2011-07-12T09:50:00.003-06:00

I would have posted the videos Megan took of my runs this weekend, but they are blurry due to the indoor arena. The only way I saw anything in them was going frame by frame.

I did figure out why Moon is getting wonky on 2nd barrel again...

He is horribly strung out coming out of 1st barrel. His nose is going up and out, his back is hollowing and his hindquarters are being left out in the south 40. My sit and wait for him to push me up isn't working because by the time he re-gathers and pushes, he is already out of the barrel. It's putting me out of time with him and throwing both of us off getting lined up for 2nd barrel.

Soooo....it's time to put his tie-down back on.

CdnCowgirl mentioned a while back that Moon looked like he is a horse that uses his head and neck a lot and that is true. However, Moon is also a horse that has a tendency to lead with his nose. I think we were doing pretty good without the tie-down because I wasn't really running Moon all that hard to his 1st barrel. He was able to stay gathered up in his turn. Once we started running harder, he started dropping in his front-end and started leading with his nose. Once that nose gets beyond a certain point, a horse cannot help but drop all of their weight onto their front-end. The next thing that happens is they start disengaging their hindquarters and flipping around the barrel.

A tie-down is not a miracle cure...obviously, as I ran Moon with one last year and still had problems, but I had it adjusted pretty loose. I have tightened Moon's tie-down one notch and we will see how that works for him. Hopefully it will provide that little bit of something for him to balance on...that is not my hand, holding the rein, that is attached to the bit in his mouth. I haven't liked the fact that it has felt like Moon is balancing on my hand around the turns. It is so difficult to maintain even pressure all the way around the turns. I hate pulling on a horse and often what happens is the horse gets heavier and heavier and a person often resorts to using stronger and stronger bits.

Obviously, you work on such things during training, but that only goes so far in competition. If a horse needs something to balance on when they are turning hard...they are either going to use your hand or you can give them a tie-down.

One issue often leads to another. I am getting leaned too far forward on the backside of the turns. I noticed that I felt really tipped forward in the turns at Meeker, but made it work. It's not working now. I don't know if it is because I am rushing my turns or if it is because Moon is pulling me forward because he is getting tipped onto his front-end. Hopefully, I can fix this by concentrating on sitting up more and continuing to drive Moon through his turns. That should help make him keep his hindquarter more engaged as well.

I also learned how to wrap legs with polo-wraps. After someone commented on them here, I noticed how many girls were now using polo-wraps on their horse's legs, particularly the hinds. I mean I had noticed it before, but most of the wrap jobs I see look more like they are for decoration, not so much for support. So I started to actually pay attention to who had the better wrap jobs. Luckily, one of my friends does a superior job of wrapping and it looked like her horse had a lot of support in the fetlock area, which is where Moon seems to be getting a little sore (on his hinds). She let me borrow a set of her polo wraps and showed me how to wrap Moon's hind legs. I think he liked the way that felt as he stayed more engaged in his hind-end on Sunday and we had a much better run.

As for my runs...well, I hit 2nd barrel on both days. On Saturday, I ran straight into the darned thing. LOL! I was so out of time with Moon when he left 1st barrel that I ended up just staring straight at the damn barrel thinking, "OMG, here comes a big, white barrel at me." Geez...it was previous runs all over again. I sure don't know why my mind locks up that sometimes, but it sucks.

On Sunday, our run was much better. I really made myself ride. First barrel was good, but Moon was really only loping into it and then lunged out of it. It was a struggle to get Moon to come across and get ready for his 2nd turn, but I got him there. He didn't want to bend to the left at all. I wasn't really sure what happened when we hit the 2nd barrel coming out of it. I thought we had it. After watching the video, I could see how twisted up my body was while I was struggling to get Moon to come over and when he set into the turn, I dropped my hand as my body straightened up and Moon just thought the turn was finished. He straightened out and left for 3rd. So it really wasn't his fault.

However, I can always tell how a run affects Moon by the way he is breathing afterwards. After Saturday's run, he was huffing and puffing and he only ran an 18.4 (very slow for this indoor). So I knew he wasn't comfortable in the run either. I did enter the jackpot run afterwards and made him re-run the pattern. It was slow (another 18.3), but I two-handed him the whole way and made him stay off of the barrels. He seemed a little better after that run.

On Sunday, he wasn't breathing hard at all after his run, so I think he is back in a better frame of mind and he was a second and a half faster (16.7).

You know, we were doing so well and then things fell apart again. That is to be expected, I guess. Moon is not an easy horse to run barrels on. I mean...it's pretty easy when things are going right, but when they are not, he's very difficult to ride. He's NOT a very bendy, flexible horse and when he gets tight or resistant...it's about like trying to force a 2x4 to flex. Not to mention that when he gets strung out behind...it feels like he doesn't have any power. Then he regathers and just throws me all over the place. Not all barrel horses are this difficult and to be honest... I really hope I never have one like him again. I have other horses that I think will be much less difficult and I am really focusing on Frosty as my next barrel horse.

Don't get me wrong. I love Moon. The darned horse has so much heart. I cannot blame him personally for our struggles. He does the best he can, e.v.e.r.y. single time for me. It's just not easy or natural for him to gather and push around a barrel. He's very long strided and a bit weak behind. If things are not just right, he reverts to doing what is natural to him and that is letting his hind-end get strung out and pulling with his front-end. He will obviously get more solid as I keep running him, but I think it is always going to be a bit of a roller coaster ride and that does things to a person's level of confidence. When he is running good, I can really focus on my riding skills and we do pretty good. I just never really know what I'm going to get when we enter the arena though and that makes me a little shaky.

We are going to keep after it though. I don't have anything else to run yet and I figure if I can learn to ride Moon consistently then anything that comes up and is easier will be like a walk in the park.

And The Winner Is...

2011-07-10T17:17:00.004-06:00

MEGAN

She and Spooks won the Youth 3D on both Saturday and Sunday!

Oh yea, guess I forgot to post that we were going to a 2-day run this weekend. Oops...Sorry!