Barrel Jackpot Kind of Weekend~!!

I am SO exhausted after these last 4 days!! The Hubby went to El Paso to visit his grandma for her 89th Birthday so the kids and I have been ridin solo since last Thursday!

We were so blessed with FABULOUS weather Thursday, Friday, and Saturday! Saturday DD, my momma and I went to a barrel jackpot and I mean to tell you the temperature was around 70*!! Holy COW it was so awesome! DD was so happy to be outside in a short sleeve shirt and not having to be all bundled up! My girl had kind of a mixed day, she faltered in her exhibitions a little so she got nerved and come time for her open run she just did of lolly gagged or something...It wasn't the best run of her life but she did win 1st place in the 2D~!! She was very excited about that, as was I!

Saturdays runs

So Sunday afternoon we headed out to another barrel jackpot but mother nature was NOT our friend today!! BURR it was cold out there!! I think we hovered around 32-34* most of the time we were out there and of course this arena wasn't fully enclosed...Not to fun! So in a nutshell today was just not DD's day. She did her 3 exhibitions and knocked over barrel one the last time in so wouldn't you know when she came in for her open run she was all tensed up coming into barrel one, teeth gritting, stiff back and literally just plowed the barrel over! Not good...Needless to say she's got quite a nice knot in her leg from hitting it so hard. I guess we all have bad days and this one was hers! The lady that owns this arena let DD come back in after the open so she could *rework* barrel one and leave on a good note, so that made me happy enough!

Sundays runs

Start of brushing to close to barrel one

And just plow her down here!

Another busy rodeo weekend next weekend! We've got some terrible weather coming this week so I'm hoping it doesn't interfere with our plans!

Hope everyone has a super BLESSED week!!

Mini Vacation...Or Horse Lesson?!

After DD's off and on runs this summer the Hubby and I decided we wanted her to go spend some time with the gal who owns the ranch we bought Krissy from. The ranch we bought her from is Dynasty Equine and the gal who owns the ranch is Fallon Taylor who is a multiple time NFR qualifier and champion Barrel Racer. The first time she qualified for the NFR she was just a wee 13 years old and she was ranked 2nd place amongst women who were twice her age! So we decided we would take us a little vacation to TX and take Krissy (DD's horse) with us!


We arrived there late Wednesday night and got Krissy all settled in her stall before we made our last hour trek to the Hubby's sisters house. Thursday afternoon we had our appointment with Fallon and her assistant Haley to see what DD could do to tweak her runs (I guess I should add here that when we bought Krissy Fallon was out of town so she never seen DD ride). As soon as DD mounted Krissy and took off at a trot Fallon turned and looked at us with eyes the size of granny smith apples and said "WHOA I didn't realize she KNEW how to ride, I'm gonna have fun with her and teach her lots"!! Fallon and Haley were both so impressed with DD's seat and just how well she handled herself on the horse, they asked how long she'd been riding and Fallon said if she "could only have 25 riders with DD's skill for lessons her job would be SO much easier" LOL!! *Proud Mommy here*!!


Fallon had DD trot the pattern so she could see where her hang-ups are. First off she noted DD grabbing her reins with both hands to quick after making a turn, so they worked on one hand on the horn and one on the rein. We talked about this issue and have determined that the reason DD is doing this is because of riding Pete, he was such a manual horse she had to use everything to turn him and she's just not tuned to riding barrel trained horses. The first time she pulled out of barrel 3 the way she's "supposed to" the look on her face was CLASSIC!! The power that they pulled was awesome and she was having a blast! Fallon went over a lesson plan with DD to use at home for about 3 weeks and then we will step it up a notch.


So after her lesson she was pretty stoked and talked the girls' ears off! They were so sweet to ask her if she wanted come back again before we went home to ride again, even if it was the day we left. They planned to just throw her on one of their horses and spend some time practicing her next step.

The dirt was really deep around these barrels!


Friday we took the family to Six Flags so we didn't make it up to the stable to see Krissy. We had originally planned on coming home Saturday but the family wanted us to stay and have a barbecue and swim party Saturday night, so we decided to stay until Sunday! So Saturday we went back on the hour drive to see Krissy and have DD ride again. When we arrived I went to pull Krissy out of her stall and was horrified to find her with her eyes swollen shut...I will post on that tomorrow.


I pulled Krissy out and proceeded to flush her eyes out and Fallon asked DD if she wanted to come ride a couple of their horses for a video she was shooting (she makes youtube videos of all of her horses for sale), DD was elated and practically ran out to the arena LOL!! I did not get to see everything that she was doing but Fallon said when they came back in that DD had a better lesson than she could have hoped for and she rode a power-house of a palomino on the barrels and had a blast!

This is a video of Fallon, DD, and Haley riding Postman! He is an AWESOME 5 year old gelding.



This video is also of Fallon, DD, and Haley riding Fred who is a grandson to Freckles Playboy!

Great Friday Night Rodeo~!!

This whole getting into the grove with a new horse while running events has been kicking DD's butt! This poor girl just could not get out of the mindset of riding her old horse...BUT after much practice I think she's finally getting it!

Thursday night we took her to an open barrel race and exhibition which she ran her 3 exhibitions at a slower pace of course and then for her open run she ran almost up to her full speed and had a 21 second run!! On a full sized pattern! WHOO-HOO!! The fastest run was by an older girl who clocked 18 seconds, so I was pretty proud of my girl!

Friday night she had her junior rodeo, we were pretty pumped for this night as we were sure she would do better than the last 2 weeks...First up was goat tying and she got her's tied but I can't remember her time! Next up was Barrels, she ran pretty good but was a bit wide coming out of barrel 2. She ran a 22 second and then ran an exhibition and tightened up those turns but still had a 22 LOL! It was exactly the same time as the first run down to the milliseconds...Strange?! So coming home on the exhibition run she lost her stirrup and Krissy went to stop and hopped sending DD bouncing in her saddle and almost up over her horn but she caught herself with her elbow, that hurt a bit and she now has a nice shiner on her elbow! So Flags was next and she placed 1st place with an 8.28 second run! She had the same issue coming home and almost bounced over her saddle again! So Poles was last and she ran a great pattern and ended up with a 27 second run which is her best personal time! She actually could have had a faster time but she practically trotted home in fear that she was going over the horn again! The fastest run on poles that night was a 26 second and that was by a high school girl...So I'm thinking my lil old Cowgirl outdid herself that night! She was beaming with pride and so were we!

This is a series of pictures I took on her exhibition run Friday night.

















LOOK at these strides! AWESOME~!!


















Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE this new horse! She is so sweet with DD, she has great manners, stands still, isn't jumpy at the gate, doesn't spook, just truly a great horse! We are so blessed!

Rodeo Season Kickoff

Friday night marked the start of one of our local rodeo circuits that DD runs in. We were all excited and of course quite nervous as this was her first "real" rodeo on Krissy, she did a fun show about a month ago and they did excellent!





We arrived Friday evening and got her all signed in. Got Krissy tacked up and ready to go. They warmed up in the arena and I was relieved to see Krissy was quite comfortable with all of the other horses and riders around her. When we did the fun show Krissy was a bit on edge, she never "acted" up I could just tell she wasn't liking the place and wanted to throw a fit. I have figured out she is a very sensitive horse and does not like people hollering and carrying on around her. She doesn't do anything she just tenses up.

My nephew and my niece are also doing these rodeo's, my nephew has done them as long as DD has but this is my niece's first year riding by herself. So that was very exciting for her and us!





I actually missed some of DD's goat tie as I was watching my niece in the big arena doing barrels and it was quite the cute show! DD had a bit of trouble dismounting and didn't get her string tight enough so the goat broke loose, she had a big look of disappointment on her face after that...

Barrel one went pretty good for my niece!! *you can enlarge these pictures by clicking on them, they are hilarious*!!



NO she is NOT falling off of her horse!!! She literally has her feet jammed in her stirrups and is pulling as hard as she can to get her ol horse back on track as he veered for home after barrel two! She did get him back on track and finished her run! She was SO proud of herself, as were we!!






DD came out for her barrel run and I knew from the start she wasn't right. She totally blew the whole run! I cannot even say what she did wrong as it was pretty much all wrong LOL! Basically same story on poles and flags...DD was a bit frustrated with herself and told me "mom it was not Krissy, it was all me! I kept telling myself no don't jerk the reins, this isn't Pete and Krissy knows what she's doing...But I just couldn't stop"! POOR girl! I felt so bad and frustrated for her!! She wanted so badly to start the season off well and didn't meet her expectations! She is ready to practice some more and do better next time..

So I'm posting first her barrel video from Friday night and then her barrel run from the fun show from April so you can see the difference in her...



Fun show run from back in April she was wide on barrel 3 but the rest was pretty clean..

Sandbagging?! That's What the Hubby Calls It!

Sandbagging....Have you heard that term used in "racing" type events?! I suppose I have probably heard it before.. Sunday we decided to take DD and Krissy to a town about an hour away and let her run their Saddle Club Fun Show! I mainly wanted to do it because we haven't yet had DD run Krissy full throttle on the barrel pattern, she has trotted her a couple of times on the pattern but I'm choosing to use the "road less traveled" with Krissy. She has spent time just riding her outside of the arena and just exercising her in the arena. She has not yet run her on the poles at all, so I really REALLY wanted this accomplished!

We got her all signed in but I didn't really pay attention to the events she was running I just assumed they would have poles! Well as the old saying goes "don't assume as you make an A** out of U and ME"!! Ya that's right NO poles?! What the crap?! I mean they did use poles in 2 of their events but not a "real" pole run! ARGH! They ran barrels first and I was pleasantly surprised to see Krissy ready to put some speed into her run! Everytime DD has ridden her she almost acts like she's to sleepy to be ridden LOL! But alas she HAS speed! They didn't make the prettiest barrel run but I'll take it for a first go around! She got 1st place! Her time ended up being a 22.?? which was the 2nd fastest out of everyone there!

The other events she did I was not familiar with! She had to watch the kids ahead of her to get the patterns down! On the second event she ran a 13.??. The other 2 events she did were again ones I was not familiar with but she won both of those for her age group to!

DD has never run this event before but she did well I thought!



So now the kicker....There were only 2 kids in her age group *giggles*!! BUT the other boy is a boy she competes against in one of her other circuits and he is really good! She was right in the top with all of the grown up times on all 4 events! So this is where the term "sandbagging" comes in... The Hubby calls it that because he said she is a stranger who came in cleaned house and went home with the trophy and all the blue ribbons LOL!



Somewhere through the run she forgot to steer on barrel 3!!

Friday Night's Barrel Run

Tonight was night 2 of the rodeo that DD did, they actually still have it going tomorrow night but Hubby is going out of town for a couple of days so we don't get to do Saturday's rodeo :(

So tonight in her age group they had all of 2 kids LOL!! The other one is TK who DD rodeo's with a lot, last night TK took first in the class but tonight TK took 2nd and DD got 1st!! Ha Ha, funny thing is she only got 1st because TK knocked over a barrel which put her time after DD's, making D 1st place LOL!

From the beginning of the night Pete was just doing better overall, not as hyper as he was last night. So DD was feeling pretty good going into her run, but then something happened...Upon reflecting on the situation tonight after we got home I keep thinking how dumb it really was..

So you know how they always have your rodeo clown?!?! Well the one at this rodeo has been HILARIOUS!!! During the rodeo they had a little issue with someone apparently shining those red laser lights into the arena. Well the announcer says "OK whoever has these laser lights and keeps shining them into the arena please stop! You can easily spook a horse and get a rider injured and you wouldn't want to live with that on your conscience, and if I have to I will personally come out into the audience and remove them from you".. I was glad she said that because yes it can spook a horse and it's just plain rude!!

So a bit later DD was outside the arena waiting for her turn to run and she said Pete had been getting antsy and she had just finally got him calmed down and focusing when the rodeo clown doing one of his tricks set off a stick of mini-dynamite (I really don't know what it was but it sounded like a canon and it scared all of us in the stands. Well after she came up after her ride she said that when they did that Pete literally jumped backwards and spun a circle mid air (something like that LOL) So then it was her turn and he was still freaked out and so was she because she is not used to him spooking at things out of the blue..UHH!! So I did go up to the crow's nest while DD collected her prize money and while I was up there I spoke to one of the lady's and told her that I thought it was kind of silly that they are worried about laser lights when they are blowing off canon's and that can spook a horse also...So one lady looked at me and says "yeah, I totally agree with you"!! Craziness I tell you!!!

DD's Attica Barrel Run

Tonight marked the kickoff for the 61st annual rodeo in a town near us, so of course we were there!!! You all know that I love rodeo's and I love them even more when my DD is competing!! So she ran her barrel run in the younger age group and got a time of 20.18 I think, which was 2nd place...Not her best time but in this arena they do keep the pattern a little bigger than what she normally runs. Pete was once again just in a funk today... Last year when we took Pete and her there they had problems because they have those banners of flags hanging around the arena and for some reason they bug him. He can be so funny!! But this year he didn't have to much of an issue with them. We have rodeo'd in this arena when they don't have the banners up and he does perfectly fine, so that has to be it...

So they will run again Friday night and we are hoping that he is more alert and that DD is giving it her all!!