Saturday

At 5:30am on Saturday I am up and getting ready to go to the Ranch Versatility Clinic. We get the horses and are on the road. Right out of the gate, I start in on Mr. Wonderful's driving. It is my nerves or am I just being overly sensitive?

Cow work was first up. I wanted to work Semper on cows since we hadn't seen cows since August at the last show. He wanted to stand and visit with his new friends. He fell in love with a jenny mule that was there. She wasn't quite as enamored with him as he was with her. She was a beautiful mule. The cattle are used up corriante roping cattle. They haven't been worked by cow horses before but that doesn't make it any easier. They want to run, run, run. All they think about is getting to the other end of the arena and they don't care who or what they have to run over or into to get there. It is our turn and he moves like he has cement in his legs. He finally gets the lead out and starts to get into the work when the cow takes off. Right through the line of riders that were supposed to be holding herd. One of the lady's colt takes to bucking. Hard. She rides about five good jumps and then goes off. I hate watching this stuff. I thought that she got kicked in the head for sure. He stepped on the back of her thigh and tore her jeans but other than that she came out unscathed. Thankfully. I think she was more worried about her pants being ripped and her butt hanging out than she was the ginormous bruise she was going to have. My daughter had left a pair of pants in my truck so I offered them to her not realizing they were Capri's. She put them on over her jeans and finished the clinic. My hat went off to her. But with all the commotion I didn't finish my turn on cattle with Semper. A couple others went and the clinician offered to let me have a go on Lily. I switched horses and let her have a go. I wanted to go really slow and work more on position on the cow. She wants to be in a hurry so my job was to keep her correct and slow. She did great. The clinician decides that we could all use more work so everyone worked another cow. This time Mr. Semper had his game on and after a little discussion about stopping straight before the turn he did really well.

Then on to trail. I think this lady stays up nights dreaming up these trail courses. I won't bore you with all the details yet, but I thought it was a really tough course. Little did I know that the next day it was going to be even more challenging. I rode Lily and worked on swinging a rope from her. I spent a few minutes just walking around swinging a loop. I probably looked like an idiot and Lily was probably embarrassed by my lack of prowess. She tolerated it. She did the walk overs and we worked the side pass. She always knows where her feet are so those types of things are easy for her. I went and got Semper and worked the rope because I have never worked a loop from his back for real. Then we walked through the course and found all my holes! And there were some big holes. I was supposed to be jogging through some cones. The clinician keep saying "put your hand up, PUT YOUR HAND UP". I am thinking that my hand is up. Riding reiners you are taught to keep your hand in a 6" x 6" box in front of the saddle horn. When I finally put my hand up, up came those shoulders and he floated through the cones. Go figure.

After the trail was Ranch Riding. I have come to really love this part of the event. Probably because Mr. Semper likes it and he looks good doing it. I had to make some space and timing adjustments but things were o.k. The judge is a Western Pleasure/Equitation judge. So I needed to ride more like I would in those types of classes. I was pretty good at Equitation as a youth and thought it wasn't going to be an issue. Well is seems that I have developed a slump. Call it a reiners slump or cutter slump, but I am having trouble keeping my shoulders over my hips, my back straight, and my shoulders back. What the heck? When did this all go to hell in a hand basket?

Next was reining. The pattern is an easy one. I should be able to ace this one. Really? Alas....Not so much. You run in and do a stop past the center marker. Back up to the center. 2 turnarounds right, 2 1/4 turnarounds left, and depart on the right lead for a small slow, change leads to a left large fast, change leads to a right lead wrap around, stop, roll back, wrap around on the left lead, stop, roll back and stop past the center marker. First I forget the back up. Then I do three turns to the right. Not to mention that in the run down Semper was swishing his tail and penning his ears. What is going on? Thank goodness it was a practice run. The circles and lead changes were fine but the stops were horrible. I have to pull him to the ground and he is cranky. Then the clinician tells me to back him up hard and ask again. I do and he is a pill. Do it again and it starts to get better but he is not happy. This is becoming an ongoing issue. I am starting to think that something else is at play here. He finally gives me a couple mediocre stops and I let it go. RD and I have been tossing around the idea that he might be sore or something isn't just right in his hips or hocks. He isn't lame. He just isn't doing this part of his job like he does everything else. This horse is a pleaser, so when he doesn't give you what you want, it makes you wonder what is up.

I rode Lily some more just asking her to stay with me and get her used to all the commotion of the day. She handled herself like a pro.

I annoyed Mr. Wonderful all the way home about his driving and bent his ear about what could possible be wrong with Mr. Semper. It was a long day and we still had show day to go.