Tired...

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.