Vegas To My House...

So if the video had loaded, you would have seen Breeze and Mindy run hard into the first barrel. It wasn't their worst first barrel, but it wasn't their best either, followed by a great second barrel. Possibly the best second barrel I have seen them run all year! Unfortunately the reins went over Breezes head while turning that second barrel and they ran to the third with them both on one side. Breeze shouldered into third barrel and knocked it down. She ran really hard home. Their time would have been another low 15, but barrel down of course means no time. Bummer! Fred, Wyatt, and I headed out to the truck and trailer and then to the Barn A alley way. Mindy and Breeze met us in the alley way. We unsaddled the horse and loaded the whole sha-bang into the trailer and drove out of the barn way. (Several minutes elapsed and the horse was cooled before we stuck her into the trailer.) Outside the barn we said good bye to Fred who was headed to the airport for a flight home, and hit the highway on our way home. It was 11:45 a.m. and 104 outside. We drove for eight and a half hours to Lava Hot Springs and camped out there for the second time. It was a whopping 65 when we arrived. This was strategically planned as the stop was only 40 minutes from where we were to pick up our horses at the trainers. The people we stayed with are some of the nicest people that you can accidental bump into and we found ourselves visiting with them until way past our bed time! We were up and on the road by 7:30 a.m. Which is 6:30 "our" time. We had our coffee, Wyatt had his bottle, and Breeze had her breakfast all before we rolled out. We stopped at the local Chevron and got MORE coffee and diesel and then finished heading to Mario's. When we got to Mario's he was riding Chix. He went through what he had done with her from start to finish. He explained to us that this mare lacked self confidence and needed to have a strong leader in her rider...but you also had to convince her that you WERE that strong leader. She was more than willing to ignore you and or flee. So patience and forgiving some silliness was necessary. He explained how he had used the round pen to get this done and that Mindy may have to revisit these lessons several times before Chix decided Mindy was her strong leader and friend. He also said if she really starts acting dumb while tied up, walk away and let her work it out. But make sure you've got a good halter and lead...and if she digs a hole, fill it in when shes done...don't try and restrain her as it just seems to give her more fuel for her fire...he did say hobbles were OK for short periods of time, but in general pretend like shes someone elses horse when she paws. Mindy made sure several times that this mare wasn't mentally handicapped or just plain stupid. Mario just smiled and assured her that Chix could learn and was actually willing to after she got around her flight reaction. His wife later assured us that if he thought she were me tally handicapped, he would have told us so. ( : Sally and Fiona were pretty cut and dry as they had no baggage and were just starting out on the saddle training. He complimented each horse in different areas and seemed to truly like each of them. I really like that of all three horses he rode for us, Sally was the one who really walked out under saddle without any real encouragement. She had her head down and swinging side to side with so much purpose. It was awesome! She is definitely the smallest of the three, but really didn't look small under saddle...I think it was her self confidence and enjoyment of having a job. She is just the best little free horse ever!! ( : Fiona was really soft in the bridle...softer than Chix or Sally. Odd I thought, she is such a bulled headed brat. Of course being green as grass, her softness came and went...but it was there and she was understanding giving to the bit. She also moved sooo nicely under saddle. Really comfortable and at ease with decent collection for a greenie. We chatted with Mario and his wife for about a half hour after the horses were loaded. We looked at his Mustang that he'd won the Wyoming Challenge with. He was a nice gelding who was caught not too far from where they lived. ( The area escapes me right now. Shocking I know! ) He was also gaited, which I thought was pretty cool and Mario said he really likes to gait. Too bad we didn't get a chance to see him ridden! I find gaited horses so interesting. And someday when I'm an old lady who needs a mounting block to get on my horse, I plan on riding a gaited animal. Not sure which breed I'll go for, but that's my plan for the geezer years. A nice gaited horse to ride. Something else that I found interesting was that Mario still had the first horse he ever really trained. A big red gelding who was in his mid 20's, he was pastured with the Mustang. We left St. George at 9:45 a.m. We had over 9 hours of drive time ahead of us...yippee!! Not. Luckily we had a lot to talk about as far as what we had seen with Mario and the recap of our weekend in Vegas too! The trip to my house was uneventful and Chad had pizza ready for us when we got home. Of course we had to wait to eat until the girls were settled. They were all pretty happy to get out of the trailer and do their own thing. Breeze loves to drink from the creek and drank like she hadn't had water in days...its soo funny to watch her. She truly enjoys her water her. Crazy horse! Poor little Wyatt was ready to be out of the truck too. He got naked and had some naked baby time while we ate. He also showed us that he was all but ready to roll over from his back to belly. He was sooo close to getting it handled, so we sat and stared at him for at least a half hour as he tried and tried to get over. Funny part is, he really doesn't like being on his belly, so once he gets it down one way...he'd better not waste any time figuring out how to get back onto his back. ( : We all turned in completely exhausted...but then I heard the outside cats making a fuss and had to hop out of bed and open the back door to see what was up. And there staring at me was a 100lb raccoon. Well ok, probably not a 100lb raccoon, but it was at least 30. The thing was a monster! I started hollering at Chad to get the .22 while it just sat there and ate the cats food. (Our outside cats get fed once a day and its in the evenings because my dogs and the neighbors dogs will eat it...but every ones dogs are in at night. I also try to feed them only what they can eat in one setting, so the raccoon really had to be on top of its game and aware of when everything happened...jerk!) Chad finally got the .22 and loaded it, it seemed to take forever! Robby and Julian were sitting by the door waiting for someone to do something...but I don't think that they were really ready for what our solution was... Chad opened fire on the munching raccoon with the .22. It was close range, so he was more or less shooting form his hip. The gigantic raccoon hopped up in the air a few times then high tailed it for the trees. We grabbed the flashlights and went looking for it. Spent 20 minutes looking in the trees and brush but didn't find so much as a speck of blood or matt of hair. Once we were satisfied that we couldn't find the damn thing to verify a hit, I went to explain to my sister who was sleeping in her trailer what she had just heard. She of course was all for finding the thing and skinning it and making Wyatt a 'coon skin cap. I assured her that we couldn't find it, but if we got a "fresh" kill on one, I would see if mom's friend Fred would skin it for us. After our little talk it was then really time to go to bed! Lights out at 10:30!! ( :