From The Beginning

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...