The attack of the yearlings

The Silver Cup Sale is this weekend. I love going to horse sales, but this one makes me crazy and here's why:

They almost caused this big moose to kill my groom.

1. Most of the yearlings aren't very sales prepped. I think half of them are barely halter broke. For example, my groom is just getting ready to put Nelson on the walker today and about gets killed as some idiot leads, I should say tries to lead, a horse by. Oh, I should mention, instead of walking on the dirt where it's safer and quieter, this person is letting the horse run circles around her on the pavement. Does she have a chain on it? Of course not. Chances are it has no idea what a chain is, but wouldn't you think it would be a good idea to get them used to one before they bring them in for a sale? Usually horses prepped for sales like Keeneland, Barrett's, Fasig-Tipton, etc. are some of the easiest to start because they've been handled so much. That is rarely the case here. *I feel really sorry for my vet and my shoer right now.

2. What some of these horses go for is ridiculous. Typically, you can go to one of the bigger sales and get something with similar breeding for about half the price.

3. Half of the horses aren't ever actually going to be for sale. People just run them through so that they are eligible for the Silver Cup sale. 

Our friend/owner and I at the sale last year. Okay, so as far as the social part goes, the sale is fun.

4. They put the yearlings behind us on the other side of our barn. Where we are at is usually fairly quiet. That's why we like it. Now we have a barn full of yearlings screaming their guts out and trying to bust through the gates (one actually succeeded this morning) and we have three horses in this weekend, one of which that freaked and got his leg over his gate. They make ace for a reason people! Use it!

5. Everyone comes over and looks at our horses, trying to find the yearlings that are for sale.

6. They park out where I usually ride and it just rained. There goes my plans for riding anytime soon unless I feel like jumping ruts every stride.

I miss Phoenix.

Anyway, it's a giant pain in the ass and I'm already done with it. At least they have a bar up during the sale though. 

Totally Suckered

I swore up and down that I wouldn't go to the track in Albuquerque again. Then again, I swore that two years ago. It's a shit hole. There are giant cest pools in the barn area. It's loud and stinks. There are pigeons everywhere that crap on you. I'm pretty sure that the nasty little buggers take aim and fire too. That's just at the track. The area around the track is full of vagrants, drunks, meth/crackheads, hookers, and things that used to be people (I'm not even sure how to classify them). Then there are those that like to steal your vehicles or anything else that has any value. No, I'm not being over dramatic. Nope, I'm not going!!!!! No! No!!! HEEEELLLLLL NOOOOO!!!!

This little peach actually jumped out, ran to a car behind him to bum a cigarette, and then jumped back up in the truck with a practiced ease that gave him more than enough time to complete his mission before the light turned green.

Demon birds conspiring about who will bomb me from what direction. Ugh! They're so gross!!!

Or so I said. Now I'm going. And here's how I got suckered:

A few weeks ago a friend messages me about taking a couple of horses to Albuquerque if she decided to run them there. I asked the fiancé and he said that he would train them if she decided to send them. Friend contacts me today saying she has decided to send them with the fiancé. I tell him. He tells me it looks like I have to go to Albuquerque now because he can't have that many horses without me helping him. Do you see how I totally got outsmarted on this one? On top of that, he was quite smug about it. Jerk.

In all honesty, I was probably doomed to go from the beginning. This just gave him a better opportunity to justify it. Oh, well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm super happy to have the business and she has very nice horses. I'm not complaining about that part at all. However, be prepared to listen to me bitch about the Downs at Hellbuquerque from the end of this month until the middle of October. A lot! I don't give a crap how much they raised the purses, that place sucks!

In my defense, I have to go, but I have conditions that had to be met before I would agree.

He better be having this mentality the entire time I'm there!

1. My ass is gone with the truck, trailer, and load of horses as soon as the meet at Phoenix starts.

2. Both Indy and Beefheart are being boarded at my trainer's place.

Of course, I forgot to add that I get to take as many lessons as we can afford and that I am going to every show possible. I'll fit that into the package somehow though. Along with another trip to the Derby, a girl's weekend at Del Mar with my friend, a trip home.... let's see what else....oh yeah, a new camera, another pair of full custom Koenigs, and a new computer (okay, I'm pushing it). Oh yes, this one WILL cost him...

My fave trainer keeping me organized before a class on Winn.

There is one good thing about going and that is that I do get to ride with my favorite trainer and his wife. I've been so much more focused with my riding this year that I'll be more likely to take advantage of having a trainer so accessible. Especially after trying to do all of this dressage crap while being locked down at the racetrack this summer. A trainer, a real arena, no match racers to try and kill me while I ride (that obviously doesn't cover at the racetrack, of course). Yes, there is at least one positive part about being drug to Albuquerque kicking and screaming. Riding will help me survive it. Well, riding AND large quantities of alcohol.

The Return of the Brains

The fiancé made it back from Boise last night. The filly, CD, didn't run nearly as well as I had hoped, but that's how horse racing goes. She was pretty good in the paddock and the post parade (Boise gets HUGE crowds at the races and I was a little nervous how she would handle it). She broke extremely well from the gates. Dennis, the jockey, said that when she saw the stands turning for home she got distracted and backed out a bit, then she got a little tired. She was plenty fit enough, but maybe the trip and the heat knocked her out some. CD is the type that has to experience something once and then she's good to go, so I'm not discouraged with her first race at all. It's not like she didn't show any talent. She made it through, didn't make any mistakes, and came out of the race in good shape. She's two and still a little butt high, big for her age. There will be more races.

Colinda Dawn and her owner. 

With life and the weather returning back to normal, I was able to ride Beefs again today. Honestly, the idea of riding him today wasn't that appealing. He had six days off (between the weather, the extra workload, throwing my back out AGAIN, and Beefs needing shod pretty bad, I didn't ride him) and had been acting like a psycho for four of them due to the arrival of a goat at the barn behind ours. The little heathen decided to get loose from the walker and take himself for a nice run out where I ride him. I was up watching a horse go, but my groom said she looked up, the halter was still hanging on the walker, and Beefs was trotting away. Apparently, he was an ass to catch, but she managed to get it done before he killed himself. After that little escapade, he was so stressed that he started acting just a bit colicky. I gave him a couple of ace pills and put him on the walker until they kicked in. He was fine after that, but he's still been a nutcase in his stall since. So yeah, I figured the ride was going to be interesting.

My shoer came and put new kicks on Beefs this morning. His feet looked great after and I always find it interesting to feel how they go after they've just been shod, which gave me a little more incentive to be happy about climbing on. He was really relaxed while I tacked him up and things were looking up by the minute. I was really insistent that he stayed focused from the second I got on and the ride went really well. I guess I should say that Beefs went well, I rode like a proverbial sack of shit. Anyway, I did notice a difference in how he traveled after being shod. He was hitting the ground much better. Beefs was a little tight through his back and slightly stiff in the right hind, but that is normal for him when he has had a few days off. I was really tight in my back today too, which probably didn't help. Beefs still felt better, especially in the front end (good job shoer). So, the ride ended with me being really happy with Beefs and pissed at myself.

On another note, yesterday marked the one year mark for my blog! I was hoping to get to 100 posts within a year, but didn't quite make it. I was a little slow getting rolling with it. Anyway, I've loved discovering your blogs and learning about all of you and your horses. You are all amazing! Thank you so much for everything over this last year!

Better

I finally got to ride Beefs again yesterday. With trying to get the fiancé ready to leave and everything else going, I haven't had much time or energy. I'm glad I rode him yesterday because it started raining yesterday afternoon and hasn't stopped since.

I was completely determined to have a decent ride. I went in with the mind set that we didn't have to be perfect, but he was going to focus and behave. Any disobedience was going to get stopped the second it started and not be allowed to escalate. I have a tendency to be too laid back when it comes to him misbehaving. In the past, I could just ignore him. Ride like nothing happened and he would get over it. However, that hasn't worked lately, so I need to start being more strict with him without taking it personally and getting mad when he is being less than stellar.

Beefs warmed up fairly well, but it was pretty obvious that he was going to attempt something at some point. Then he pulled the dropping the outside shoulder and trying to run sideways thing. I popped him on the ass to try to send him forward. That just made him run sideways more. I got him on the shoulder, he still didn't stop. I used the whip harder on the shoulder and he finally decided that he should probably give it up. I hate having to use a whip as punishment. He's a little jumpy about it as it is and I prefer to use it for refinement, but I'm also not going to let dangerous behavior go unpunished. It's not like I hit him hard enough to leave welt and I wasn't using it out of anger or fear. I wasn't beating him because he wasn't going perfect and I lost my temper. I didn't have to use it again for the rest of the ride, but I did keep it in my outside hand just in case.

After that little fiasco, Beefs was pretty good. He didn't go as well as he was going a couple of weeks ago and that's fine. Horses plateau or even regress sometimes. That doesn't bother me. All I wanted to accomplish was for him to stop being resistant, to focus on listening instead of testing me. When he is done with being evasive, I will worry about moving on. Until then we will just keep it simple. His brain staying in tact is the most important thing to me.

I think one of the most valuable things I have learned at the track is to know when to push and when to back off, to follow my instincts instead of force something because I want to or because it's expected. The worst thing I could do with Beefs right now is cave into rule of thumb expectations. To be fair to both of us, I have to adjust to the horse I have at the moment. Trying to force the horse I want won't get me anywhere.

I was going to go buy the things to set up a temporary dressage arena yesterday since my friend and I wanted to video our tests today. This rain isn't letting up anytime soon and the entire backside is a muddy mess, so our chances of getting out entries in for the Dressage Anywhere classes on time are pretty unlikely. There is always next month, I guess. That's what I get for waiting until the last minute. Not that I had a whole lot of choice, but still.

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Wins

It was hectic with having three horses running yesterday. The fiancé and I do almost all of the work ourselves to get them ready to run, so having one in the fourth, fifth, and seventh race makes it a little tough. Our groom, her brother, and her dad helped us with getting the horses up to the paddock and cooling them out or we would have been in a world of hurt.  We were literally going non stop from early in the morning until early evening.

Princess was in the fourth race, a non-winners of three lifetime going seven furlongs. She drew the outside post, #7 of 7 horses, which was perfect. After breaking on top, the rider took a hold of her and set her just off of the pace. She started to really pick it up coming out of the turn and the horse inside of her started getting out, pushing Princess wide. She kept digging in down the lane and ended up winning by two lengths. She got a perfect ride, I couldn't have asked for a better one. So proud of my girl!

My pretty filly!

She could have posed a little better.....

We had Volage, aka Nelson, in the fifth race. He won a maiden special weight here last week. The race didn't knock him out at all, he was bucking and kicking on the walker the next day, so we ran him again this weekend. After he won, there were people mouthing off to his owner about how the horses that he beat weren't much, which we already knew and is the truth (that's why he was in a non-two $5,000 instead of an allowance this race). However, a win is a win and it matters to someone. I don't see why people have to be assholes to the owner about it, let the guy enjoy his win. Anyway, I was hoping he would run well enough yesterday to at least shut some of them up.

Nelson's win picture from last week.

Nelson is a big old plodder and will just lope behind the rest of the field if the rider doesn't be really aggressive. The rider did a good job of keeping him close to where he needed to be and Nelson ran a pretty good third, which was fine. No excuses, he just got outrun. This is the first time he actually came back a little tired, so at least he finally put some effort into a race.

By the time I got back from Nelson's race they had already called to get ready for the seventh. I only had about ten minutes to get Harley bridled, wrapped, and stretched before we went up. I hate doing race day wraps because wrapping anything with Vetwrap without some form of padding freaks me out. Having to do it in a huge hurry REALLY made me nervous, but they actually turned out well and didn't budge during the race. Phew. 

Harley drew the #2, which sucked because she tends to run better on the outside. I really got nervous when she didn't break well.

She's in the white. This was right after they broke.

Harley was 9 1/2 lengths behind at the quarter pole. Dennis is a smart rider and didn't panic when she broke bad. He just sat there and let her gradually get closer instead of freaking out and shipping her to catch up. At the half mile pole she had made up a little ground, now only 5 1/4 lengths behind the leader. At the quarter pole she was third of six horses by 2 1/2 lengths. Dennis swung her to the outside and she came flying to win it by a length and a half!

Zinging down the lane. Dennis said she was just really starting to run and had a lot left, that he had a hard time getting her pulled up.

Apparently he was right, because she came flying back to the winner's circle too.

Harley and Dennis are now three for three. This was Harley's first time against open company and even one of our owner's said he didn't know if she would be able to win it due to the competition now being tougher. She showed so much heart and try! It was impressive that she won, but even more so that she overcame a bad break to do so. 

Thank you Dennis!

So, we had a pretty good day yesterday. Winning all three races would have been even better, but I'm not going to complain.