Hey Ya’ll
Here it is five days past my newsletter submission deadline and I’ve been wishing I had another fortune cookie for inspiration. Needless to say I’ve been suffering from a bad case of writer’s block. I talked to Maribeth about my situation and she had the following advice…. “write about showing your horse”.
So…tagging onto last month’s “just do it” message, I’ll follow up with a little about how I’ve spent my spring and summer and why no one has seen me on a trail ride or at a campout for awhile. Beginning as far back as April I started working REALLY hard on tuning Sass up for a full show season. We started by participating in a couple of Trail Clinics – with the usual tortures of gates, bridges, water boxes, mailboxes, trot and lope overs, and the really hard one…THE LOG DRAG. You probably don’t know that Sass had an incident with a log drag which scared the bejeesus out of her so it’s been a HUGE challenge to get her past her memory of that terrible day and get her to “do it” fluidly without flipping out.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been doing a clinic or some show or another, the majority of July and August and I’m not done yet. My calendar has stuff planned through September and into October. My husband hardly bats an eye anymore when I pull out the cooler and start packing it up for another weekend road trip somewhere. I’m certain he doesn’t like it very much but I always make sure he’s invited to be wherever it is I’m going. The good news is I’ve been really USING my trailer and I’m so happy I got the upgrade from a bumper pull a year ago. Going to a horse show in deluxe accommodations makes it all worthwhile. Seriously!!
Anyway…I’ve been to several shows in preparation for an actual Ranch Horse Versatility show that happened on August 14th. Besides doing a Trail Course we were required to show our horses in Reining, and Cutting (including herd work), then boxing and taking a cow down the fence, and for me Roping a Steer head stuck into a bale of hay. Some of the more advanced participants at the show had to actually rope a live cow. Gosh does that aspect scare the crap out of me but someday soon I may have to do that too. I was pleased and surprised at the end of the day to find out I had taken third place in the Novice class so I guess all my efforts are starting to pay off. Maribeth is predicting that one of these days I’ll actually get a buckle. I’m looking forward to that…
I’m doing another Ranch Versatility show in early September, then gearing up to show Sass at the Santa Cruz County Fair which at least is close to home and easy to get too. Things start to wind down from there and I’m looking forward to time with all MBE friends at Lake San Antonio in October.
Hope you’re all having the summer of your dreams…..
Remember, just “do it”
Shawn
