2010 Jamulfest Gymkhana!

Oh, what a weekend! It feels like I've been in motion for two days straight. But it was a lot of fun!

I got up this morning at 5am, and started on cooking my breakfast and taking care of indoor animals. It's too dark yet at that time to go outside and feed the horses and let the goats out. Besides, they think that "walkies" start immediately after feeding the horses, so I didn't want to confuse the dogs and goats!

I noticed that only one of the cats had come in over night, and the other hadn't been seen since the previous evening. That was a little disconcerting, but I wasn't overly concerned. It's not unusual for the cats to take the occasional "all-nighter."

When my soft-boiled eggs were ready, I started to open them. Well, the first one I took out promptly slipped from my fingers and fell between my leg and the cabinets. I instinctively tried to "catch" it by using my leg. Oops. That just resulted in squirting the yolk all over the front of the cabinet! Fortunately the little dog helped me clean up the mess

After I'd fed the horses and taken the dogs and goats for a walk, I began preparing to load the horses. I'd awakened my daughter, who was getting dressed and ready to go after a long night of her own. She hadn't gotten home until almost 2am! While I was fussing in my truck, I heard the missing cat meowing plaintively. It sounded like he was inside something! It didn't take long for me to realize he was trapped in the back of my truck. I had had the cap open to remove some bags of feed, and didn't close it until I was ready to go back inside last night. Clearly, he'd hopped into the truck and that was where he stayed all night! I opened the cap and he darted out and headed straight for the house. That was one very unhappy kitty!

We got the horses loaded and I drove them to the arena. Once there, my daughter took over getting them set up, and I took off in the Jeep for church. I play with one of the bell choirs at our church, and we were performing in service this morning. I got to church, changed clothes, and warmed up. We played right before the sermon, and instead of sitting back down with the group, I scooped up my stuff and headed back out! I changed back into my riding gear before leaving the church, and was back on my way to Jamul by 10am.

On the way back, I stopped at the bank for cash and the grocery store for ice. While at the grocery store, I realized my daughter hadn't eaten, and remembered that she'd complained that she hadn't had any worthwhile food all weekend. She had been at a water polo tournament from Friday to Saturday, and ended up eating a lot of fast food. So I picked up a medium fruit platter. When I got back to the arena, the fruit platter was greatly appreciated.

My daughter and I perused the list of events. There was barrels, single stake, pony express, speed barrels, and speed ball. I signed up for all of the events with Hoss. My daughter signed up for different events with each horse. She did barrels, single stake, pony express, and speed barrels on Phoenix. She did barrels, single stake, and speed ball on Tahoe. We were a team for pony express.

Barrels with Hoss was interesting. He thought he should run right at the barrels, rather than around them. I was very carefully and intently not looking at the barrels but around them. Still, he didn't believe me! It resulted in quite the discussion. Still, not bad on that event.

While my daughter was riding Phoenix in barrels, that little pony was bucking like mad. It was funny, because the announcer said something to the effect of, "That horse looks like he really wants to pop up!" I hollered, "He is bucking! That's him bucking!" Phoenix's buck isn't much. It's a little like riding a hobby horse in a mild earthquake.

While waiting for our next event, I noticed that Phoenix's girth was loose. And I mean really loose! I told my daughter she ought to tighten it, and when she asked why, stuck my arm between the girth and the horse! Well, that might explain why he was bucking!

Single stake was somewhat less difficult, but Hoss was hoppy and strung out. I absolutely refuse to let him run like a maniac in anything less than a balanced manner, so I kept him slower than he could have gone. In single stake, you just run down to the end and turn around a stake and run back. They made it a little more challenging by setting up two poles in the middle of the arena that the horses must pass between on the way out and on the way back.

Pony Express was a kick! In this event, two riders are a team. The first rider carries a saddle bag all the way around the arena (going as fast as possible, of course!), then passes it off to the second rider, who proceeds to race around the arena as well. Hoss and I went first. He was still less than cooperative, so I kept him down to a trot. We had to stay inside cones set up in the corners, and I was not sure I could reliably keep him in them if we went faster. Additionally, since we didn't get much chance to warm up, he was still acting like every little thing he could see was going to leap out and get him. Going past the announcer's booth, I ended up side-passing him! I didn't want to take the time to do a proper correction, so we just did something he'd rather not do and still go in the direction we needed to. I passed the saddle bag off to my daughter and Phoenix, and they darted off like they'd been shot from a cannon! Unfortunately, in the second corner, they took out a cone, but my daughter was paying attention and circled around to take it again. Our time was a little over one minute. Most teams were closer to forty seconds. Still, we took sixth place, largely because so many teams were disqualified for knocking over cones and not circling back.

Speed barrels was a little better. In speed barrels, three barrels are set up in a line. You weave through, turn at the end, and weave back. Simple. By this point, Hoss was beginning to get the picture that it wasn't free-for-all time. I had a hard time getting him through to the left, but our hard turn at the end was great! A perfect barrel turn! We didn't get a great time on this one, but I was happy with it.

Speed ball is a tough event. You ride down to a cone on top of an upside down milk crate and drop a golf ball in it, then ride back. Sounds easy enough, but that cone sure is a long way down, and the hole in the top seems so small, despite being a good four inches or more across. Hoss was not at all thrilled about being asked to stop next to the cone on a crate. He kept turning to face it. I was just really not going to put up with not getting what I wanted, so I kept reorienting him and correcting until I got a better, if not perfect, alignment, leaned down, and dropped the golf ball in! That felt like a real accomplishment, considering the last time I couldn't get the ball in. Our time was 69 seconds, and we still got sixth place. Again, the disqualifications worked in our favor.

It was a little after 3pm when we were done. Three hours at the gymkhana. It was hot, somewhere a little over 100 degrees. We had to wait for someone to leave so we could pull our trailer out, but we still got out by 4pm. My daughter left a little ahead of me in the Jeep. By the time I got home and unloaded and fed, she had collapsed on her bed for a nap. Poor thing was hot, tired, and just beat from a weekend of activity.

I do not know what happened in the trailer, but Hoss and Phoenix came out bloody! One of the dividers is out of my trailer, creating a large stall in the front. My daughter had hung the hay net in the space Hoss and Phoenix share. I now know why people refrain from using hay nets in trailers. Phoenix has a number of small cuts. Hoss has a small cut on his nose, and had somehow managed to get his head into the net, from which I had to extricate him before he could get out! Fortunately the injuries are very minor, especially to Hoss, so I'm not worried about either of them. I cleaned them up and put them away.

When my daughter woke up, we went out to dinner, where we ordered enough food for four days and ate close to half of it. We do have leftovers, though, which was sort of the point. All in all, a great day! My daughter's boyfriend apologized to her for not showing up, but she told him it was okay, she had a great time with her mom. What better day could there be than that?