Update

Oh how these summer days go by...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moon does the rest.

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

I had a total and complete panic attack.

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

2nd barrel went over.

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

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

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

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

To be continued...

Limitations

I was up in the Rifle rodeo slack this afternoon and don't have much to report except that, Moon was not himself during warm-up and ran very slow in his competition run. A full second off of the fast times. Poor guy. He put together a good enough run. He just didn't wasn't firing.

The last time he felt like this was a few weeks back when our air was filled with smoke from fires all around. That time his run in Hotchkiss was a good one as well, it just lacked speed.

No smoke to blame breathing problems on this time, but it was hot and the humidity has been very high...Not 'Georgia' humidity by any means...but it's monsoon season here, so it's quite muggy and sticky. I think the problem was because the slack was run in the middle of the afternoon, when the air is the worst.

I am always conscientious of Moon's breathing. I know his respiratory system is not the greatest...but I take great pains to keep it as peak as I can. It's more about providing proper supplementation than it is about his conditioning program. But even that only goes so far. Today just wasn't our day.

I suspect there are drug therapies...and I even seem to remember hearing/reading something about Charmayne James having to give Scamper some sort of breathing treatments before his runs after he suffered a respiratory illness. Right now, I guess I am just going to have to be more careful about the times of day that I run him until the humidity passes.

We are up in Salida tomorrow...an evening performance. Hoping all will be back to normal.

Three Days On The Road-Run #3

Sunday morning found me and the boys rolling in the general direction of home. First we had to stop and make a little run on Spooks...I didn't haul the poor, black horse 550 miles for nothing. ;-)

Spooks is pretty sure that the rodeo life is NOT for him. Not only was he stuck traveling with his least favorite horse, he did NOT like the thunderstorms we drove through, all the activity at the rodeos, booms, fireworks, and he especially did NOT like the sheep. LMAO

Typically Moon is nothing but mean to Spooks and Spooks stays far, far away...Hahaha...You would have thought they were 'besties' the way they acted when they were separated while on the road. I'd like to say that I think they may have become friends, but not really. As soon as I turned them out when I got home, Spooks got as far away from Moon as he could. He's no dummy. Moon is mean as heck to him and just because they were buddies on the road doesn't mean Spooks actually trusts Moon.

So anyway, back to the barrel race. I really cannot afford to miss any more association runs with Spooks. He was sitting 2nd in the 4D standings with more than a few points separating him and the leader. The lady leading at the moment has a very solid 4D horse as well. Since Spooks decided to run in the 3D a couple of times, she got a pretty good lead on us.

Don't get me wrong...I like the other lady. She's super nice. But that doesn't mean I don't want Spooks to win the title. Know what I mean?

When I got there, I got horses unloaded, taken care of and started brushing. I was specifically checking Moon out to see if he seemed sore or stiff anywhere. Outside of a bit of puffiness around his hind fetlocks...he was in excellent shape. Considering the puffiness could have been due to all of the miles in the trailer over the last couple of days, I wasn't too concerned about them. I washed Moon's legs with ice water and slathered on some Mineral Ice. I figured he was in good enough shape to run again. But I had a little bit different goal for him this run.

See...I can only get so many 'fast' runs out of Moon before he starts wanting to drop his shoulder in the turns and flip that hindquarter out. What he needed was a good practice run in a competition setting to get him squarely back under himself and rating properly for the turns.

I am nowhere in the point standings on Moon at the local runs. So I am treating them more like practice runs than competition runs.

Normally, I run Spooks first and then Moon. This time I decided that since I felt pretty in-synch with Moon, I was going to run him first. I got him thoroughly warmed up and then took him back to the trailer. It was about 20 minutes before the race started and he settled in for a little nap. Perfect! It had been a long weekend and I knew he must have been getting tired. I was hoping that he would be fairly docile for this run.

You know...he was pretty good. When it was time, we stood well back from the gate and as each girl before us went, we eased up a little more. Moon was walking right up there. When it was our turn, he tried to spin out, but I didn't let him get away with it. I spanked him on the butt and as soon as he faced up to the gate, I started talking that ridiculous baby-talk to him again. He crept up to the gate as nice as you please. Now...when I say crept, I don't mean, didn't want to go and drug his feet...He crept like a cat stalking his prey. I just kept talking to him and kept a hold of him as I eased him into his run.

I DID NOT want a full on rodeo run. I wanted a nice, relaxed, practice run. That's what I got up to the 1st barrel. Moon was stretched out, but not running hard. He turned that barrel about as pretty as a horse can. He came out with a nice straight body...but I didn't let him go.

Instead of starting to really push him...I kept him rated up. Oohhhh...he did not like that. He was straining to run. I was straining to hold him down. We struggled across between 1st and 2nd and I got my way. What I really wanted to do was to make sure that Moon was rating into that 2nd barrel nice and straight. I also wanted him to open the top of his pocket up by about 1 foot. I think that will make a difference on whether we get more consistent getting around that 2nd barrel or not.

I rolled him into that barrel exactly where I wanted him, in position and with controlled speed, he turned that barrel so smooth and quiet.

Problem was, he ticked the barrel with his hip on the way out. That's when I made a really big mistake...

I looked back. (NEVER look back!!)

I have no idea why...I never look back at barrels. Guess I should say...almost never, cause I sure enough did this time. Dohhh!!!

Moon was rolling along pretty good and even though I immediately realized my mistake and whipped my head back around...3rd barrel was r.i.g.h.t. there and *I* had not given Moon enough pocket to get around hit. I rated him as hard as I could, but he ticked the barrel with his shoulder and it just sort of plopped over.

UUggghhhh...I was SOOOO MAD at myself.

I slow-loped Moon home. Ahhhh...from hero to zero with one backward glance. LOL

Wanna hear the disgusting part?

His time was (would have been) an 18.08. Hahahaha...All that won it was a 17.89. If I had left that 3rd barrel up and just let Moon run home...he would have won the damned race. He lost at least 2 tenths on his time by slow-loping home. But once that barrel goes down...it's over...so there was no reason to run him home.

Now doesn't that just make you sick?

However...on the bright side...As much as Moon did not appreciate it...I did manage to keep him at a speed that *I* wanted him to be at. Kept his body straight going into his turns, opened his pocket up just a tish and outside of ME not placing him where he needed to be on 3rd...it was a really good training exercise and something I plan on working on more.

Not making excuses...because you should never look back, but after making a couple of rodeo runs...I sorta forgot that 3rd barrel wasn't very far away on an association pattern. Rodeos generally set their patterns to the size of the arena, which means that 3rd is usually way and the hell and gone up at the other end of the arena. Associations generally set their pattern to a standard size, with equal distances between 1st and 2nd and then the same distance from 1st to 3rd and 2nd to 3rd. In general speak...several strides less from 2nd to 3rd than what you get at rodeos. It was still a dumb mistake...but I won't be making that one again for a long while. ;-)

Now poor old Spooks got drug 550 miles just so he could go out there and do what he does. And he did. He was out of the money, but picked up those oh-so-valuable points...closing the gap between me and the leader to just one point. Go Spooks!! I really want to win that year-end saddle. :-)

I hung around just long enough to take care of the horses and while they were eating their afternoon  snack, I watched a few more runs and visited with friends. That in-itself can become a dangerous thing to do. When a plan does not come together...it can often garner unsolicited advice and even subtle negativity. But that subject is worthy of it's own post. ;-)