May was quite busy after a major storm on April 29th knocked out our power for four days, an impromptu trip to Virginia to visit my sister, practicing at the saddle club, taking lessons, plus squeezing in two barrel races and a rodeo, a Memorial Day parade, oh and a little detour to Pittsburgh for a Pirates game one weekend and a George Straight concert the next. I’m tired just thinking about all of it.
The weather bounced between freezing cold, torrential rain, and scorching sun. We squeezed in practicing when we could and had to ride along the road when the arena was too muddy. In between our trips to Virginia and Pittsburgh, we headed to a barrel race and Reno and I had our first clean run together! It was a little messy on the way to the third, but I didn’t care. We are making so much progress already and we only entered a couple times.
We were able to haul to our local saddle club a couple times to practice the pattern. I needed to work on driving past the barrels, and we also made a bit change that we wanted to test out. Our arena at home is pretty small, so it helps to haul to other places to practice a bigger pattern.
Meanwhile, the end of May has already checked off one of our major goals for this year. Reno and I competed at our very first APRA rodeo together! It wasn’t our best run, we knocked the second and went wide to the third, but we did it. Of course there were also some pre-run shenanigans, we filmed our first rodeo outfit video for the year. I had to buy a selfie stick just to make it!
I also started taking lessons during the week. Every Wednesday for four weeks we hauled for about 30 minutes to them. Each session we did a couple of drills and checked our work by cruising through the pattern at the end. If only I could ride at a show like I do during my lessons, but we will get there.
We ended the month with another point show at the saddle club. I had a couple exhibitions; Reno was a little spicy at first with the chilly weather. Our run in the class was really good, even with a knocked barrel. I shaved off a whole second from last month’s show.
Reno got to go in his first Memorial Day parade with us, and he handled it perfectly. He got a little nervous with the markings on the road, so he walked really slow, but he never spooked at the flags or floats or the crowd.
Finally, even though it’s not barrel racing related, on May 31st we got to go to the George Strait concert in Pittsburgh! It just so happened to be freezing, and our seats were way at the top in the nosebleeds. We took winter coats, heater packs, and blankets. It was so windy, I thought my cowboy hat was going to blow off my head. It was a great once-in-a-lifetime concert and we thawed out on the drive home.
After that, it was back to our regularly scheduled program for June, and we went to Rocky Ridge for our second APRA rodeo. We really killed the second barrel this time and headed wide to the third again, but it was faster by a second despite the bumps.
At our last lesson we practiced with a short distance between the first and second barrels and had the third farther out. We signed up for our first track pen rodeo and wanted to be ready. So, our third APRA Rodeo we went out to Huntingdon. We ended up being in the slack after the rodeo, so we had to warm up in the dark. A first for us, but Reno handled it well. I finally made my run at 11 PM and we knocked the second and third this time. There wasn’t really room to go wide to the third, so that was better than what we had been doing. I just need to hold him off the barrel on the backside to clear it.
Now this point in the story is when things get a little wild. We signed up for two rodeos, on the same day, 4 hours away from each other. Rocky Ridge was rodeo number four, with slack starting at 1 PM. When we first got there, there was a loose bull, so we waited till they caught it to unload. It was going to be a long and hot day, so we packed our trailer with lots of ice and water for us and fans for the horses. I ended up being first to run because of a turnout and we were loaded and on the road by 2:30 PM. Which was going to give us just enough time to get to the other rodeo to check in and get ready to run in the performance which was starting at 7 PM.
Well, life had some other plans. We had two route options, through Pittsburgh on 22 or the turnpike. We opted to take the turnpike because we didn’t want to get stuck in Pittsburgh traffic. Little did we know the traffic jam was going to affect us either way, we got stuck a half mile away from the arena. (We stopped once about halfway to give the horses a drink) While we were sitting in traffic, my mom noticed a burning plastic smell and saw the house right next to us was catching on fire. She got out and called 911, I got out to get cars to move up the road, so we could move the trailer to allow the firetrucks to get in. The traffic was affecting the firetrucks too, because they were at the rodeo and couldn’t get out. Two people got out of the house okay, and we were able to sneak around traffic with a back road to the rodeo. There was still traffic near the entrance, so my mom and I walked almost half a mile so we could check in. When we got there, they told us they had delayed the start time by a half an hour because of traffic, and they were just hearing about the fire. We got parked and the horses finally unloaded at 7:15 PM. Luckily, we had fans in the trailer to keep the air moving, since we sat in traffic in the sun for so long.
I was first out, in our first rodeo performance, and we had a clean run! It was such a long day, I ran a little after 8:30 PM but we never left the rodeo grounds until after 10 and made it home after 2 AM Sunday morning. You never know what the rodeo road will bring, although I never expected any of that. The shenanigans seem to flock to us like a moth to a lightbulb, but it makes for some crazy stories. Sometimes they don’t even feel like real life.
The Barrel Racer's Journal 