Making a Deposit into my Karma Account

Hello friends,

As the saying goes… no good deed goes unpunished, but I think this weekend was an exception. I worked hard all weekend long teaching horsemanship clinics to benefit good causes and everyone had a good time and scored a few karma points in the process.

Friday evening Rich and I drove up to Parker CO, to the Colorado Horse Park, for the "Legends Maker" Versatility Ranch Horse clinic. It was a two day clinic, one day competition sponsored by the National Versatility Ranch Horse Assn, promoted specifically for youth riders.

I was impressed by the number of riders—12 youth ranging in age from 10 to 17—their interest in this challenging competition and the quality of their horses. While none of the riders had really fancy horses, they were all decent, well-trained, safe and reliable mounts. Anyone who's ever been a 4H leader know how remarkable that last statement is.

I worked the kids on their equitation, cueing, collection and improving their stops. The poor kids had been riding since 8:30 that morning and I didn't even start until 4:00! They were obviously hot and tired but they paid good attention and tried everything I threw at them and showed significant improvement. The kids and their parents were all polite and grateful and it made me feel really good about donating my time to a good cause.

Saturday and Sunday I had a general horsemanship clinic at Cactus Creek Ranch, just south of Colorado Springs; this clinic was to benefit "Renee's Friends," a fundraising group that provides direct financial benefits to breast cancer patients here in Colorado. Headed up by the feisty and dynamic Renee Coble  HYPERLINK "http://www.reneesfriendsfund.com/AboutUs/AbouttheBoard/tabid/216/Default.aspx" http://www.reneesfriendsfund.com/AboutUs/AbouttheBoard/tabid/216/Default.aspx , a tough-minded and courageous survivor of breast cancer—still engaged in this ongoing battle, the group raises money mostly through horse related events and then distributes that money directly to those in need. Often there is only a week between when a person in need applies for help and gets it. Besides financial help, they offer support services and advocacy. . If you want to learn more about Renee's Friends or make a donation, please visit  HYPERLINK "http://www.reneesfriendsfund.com/Home/tabid/211/Default.aspx" http://www.reneesfriendsfund.com/Home/tabid/211/Default.aspx .

We had 12 riders in the clinic and many auditors—all of whom were very pleased to know that 50% of the net proceeds were being donated back to Renee's Friends. It was a great clinic! We had a really fun group of riders—all of whom made great progress during the two days. Saturday night we had a fun wine and cheese party at the barn and gave away some great prizes to those who could answer the horse trivia questions.

It was a real joy for me to be able to take and ride my own horse at a clinic. Most of the clinics I do are out of state and I've yet to figure out how to get my horse on a plane. The way the airlines are going, I'll be lucky to be able to take my boots soon.

It was good to be able to demonstrate on Dually and give him at least some work over the weekend, rather than coming home to a fresh horse on Monday. Even though he didn't really have to do that much, for some reason he was dog tired by the end of the day. He could hardly hold his head up in the trailer. But today he is out in the pasture, stuffing his mouth full of green grass (a rare treat for our horses) and resting up. By tomorrow, he'll be back to his perky self, I'm sure.

I am excited to be staying home this weekend and have some time to relax with my horses and my husband (not necessarily in that order). Rich is going to pick up his new horse tonight, so we are very excited to get him home and start getting to know him. More about that later!

Julie

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I love shopping-- that is, for horses!

Hello,

It’s been nice to be home for a few days—long enough to relax a little and get some chores done around the place. I wish I had more time to garden. I gave up vegetable gardening a long time ago, not from lack of interest but from lack of time, but I still enjoy flower gardening. Now I am down to just planting a few pots and an herb barrel and it’s all I can do to keep them going.

Had a nice mellow ride on Dually yesterday. It was nice to reflect on some of the things I learned at the clinic last weekend. He’s such a mellow fellow when I can ride him every day. I also got some good work done with one of my sale horse—a handsome little dun cutting horse—and worked with Dianna (who rides for me) to further him along with his training. We got chased out of the arena by lightening and rain.

Rich and I drove down to Alamosa to look at a horse for  Rich at a friend’s training barn, Blue Allen. He’s a successful cowhorse trainer that we’ve come to know through the years. We looked at an 8 y/o stallion named “Chics Dig Him” (Hollywood Dunit on the topside and Smart Chic Olena on the bottom). Blue has had “Digger” since he was a yearling and has done all the training and showing on him, starting out at the 3 y/o reined cowhorse futurity. Digger was Blue’s first show horse and then he was Blues’ wife’s first show horse, so they were both pretty attached. And I can see why because he is a nice horse and a very handsome gentleman. He’s a gorgeous and classic stock horse with a very kind and gentle temperament

It looks like Digger will be coming to live with us next week and Rich is officially entering the realm of too many horse to ride and not enough time. He’s not real keen on the idea of selling Tucker but I hate to see a horse sitting idle, especially such a great horse, so I am hoping he’ll change his mind. He’s still working on his goal to earn enough points for Tucker’s ranch horse champion award, but I think he’ll get that one pretty soon. So we’ll see what happens. If I were Rich I’d be counting the minutes to get the new horse home, but he seems much more patient about it than me.

I have a clinic in Colorado Springs this weekend so Rich and the boys (Tucker and Dually) will be going with me to the clinic. It’s such a nice treat for me to be able to teach and ride my own horse. This is a clinic to benefit Renee’s Friends, a fundraising group for breast cancer research. I am hoping we’ll have a great turnout. It’s been full to riders for some time but there’s always room for more spectators, especially for such a great cause!

Now it’s time to head to the barn for our evening ride.

More later,

Julie

Nuttin' but Cuttin'

Greetings!

It's been a fun and relaxing weekend for both Rich and me, although our boys, Tucker and Dually, probably could've thought of better things to do. We've been at Cactus Creek Ranch, between Pueblo and Colorado Springs, for the annual "Nuttin' but Cuttin' clinic, sponsored by the National Versatility Ranch Horse Association and organized and executed by our good friends, Tim and Cindy Rose.

Friday morning I put a good work on Dually before we left since I was gone all week and he hadn't been ridden. Although he gets turned out and longed when I am out of town, it's not quite the same thing as working him. He's a horse that needs steady work to stay mellow and focused. After 4-5 days of no riding at all, he's a little hot under the collar. But a good hard workout usually changes his tune substantially. Then after a nice bath for the two boys, we were on the road.

The NVRHA clinics and competitions are always fun, with quite a bit of socializing thrown in for good measure. The people that are regulars become good friends and the "new hires" are always welcomed with open arms and the offer of a good cold beer. It's a diverse group of people—some experienced riders with accomplished horses and some just starting out on whatever horse they happen to have. Some young, some old—a nice even split between men and women.

This particular clinic is strictly ranch cutting—no competition—and only two days. There were three clinicians: Anne Hutchinson of Oklahoma, Jay Hensen of Kansas and Gary Campbell of Colorado, and a total of 140 head of cattle. We worked a half day with each clinician, then for the last half of the day on Sunday we rode through a mock class, just like it's done in competition.

I got some excellent work on Dually. As always, he's a little fresh at first and requires some correction to get his mind right. He's so cowy and quite athletic—able to make some really big moves on a cow—so it is sometimes hard to contain his enthusiasm. But once he realizes he has to fly right, he's all business. Nursing along his back injury is always a little tricky for me, but this weekend he worked really well and felt great.

Rich had some really nice works on Tucker too. Both of our horses are excellent cutters but it is always hard to let go of them and let them do their jobs. Laying your hand down on his neck once you've put him on the cow is a hard thing to do but you have to trust him to do his job and then correct him when he ,makes a mistake. Cutters are supposed to work with little or no guidance from the rider. But everyone gets trapped into thinking their horse is going to make a mistake and trying to prevent it by guiding him through the whole thing.

The problem with that is two fold: one, your horse will never learn to do it on his own if you are constantly micromanaging him. Two, no horse can learn anything unless you let him make a mistake and then correct him. We all learn through our mistakes (hopefully). I talk about this a lot in my clinics—let him make a mistake and then fix it—don't try to prevent the mistake in the first place.

Speaking of clinic, next weekend I'll be teaching a clinic at this exact same location, Cactus Creek Ranch. The clinic benefits "Renee's Friends" a group that raises money for breast cancer research. I hope there will be lots of people and I know we will all have a good time!

All the best,

Julie

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Hall of Fame cheeseburger

Hello friends!

I spent most of this week in Amarillo TX for meetings at the International Headquarters of the American Quarter Horse Association. Although sitting in meetings all day is not on the top of the list of my favorite things to do, I have to say, I really enjoyed the trip. Well, most of it. The travel part left something to be desired. It’s only a 6 hour drive to Amarillo, but instead I flew and it took me 12 hours door-to-door. Normally I fly United, but on this trip I had to fly American. Because I rack up a lot pf miles every year (about 75,000) I get a LOT of perks with United. It’ll be a while before I venture outside the fold again.

The meetings were about AQHA’s Professional Horseman’s Association and how to expand this branch of the organization to better serve its members. AQHA is the largest breed organization in the world, recently registering its 5 millionth horse. It was a very productive meeting and an honor and pleasure to meet some of the top horsemen (and women) in all of the US and Canada.

Taking a tour of AQHA’s inner sanctum was most impressive. There are nearly 300 employees and from what I could see, they are all dedicated, happy and hard working. The corporate culture there is remarkable and clearly it is an organization that highly values its staff. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of AQHA’s prominent staff members before and I have to say, they are an impressive lot.

We also got to tour the museum and Quarter Horse hall of fame. It was so interesting to see the history of the breed, all its most prominent horses through the decades and the men and women that made history along side their horses. The timeline was intertwined with world history, giving great perspective on what was happening when.

A little wining and dining on the town made up for a long day around the board room table but I have to say, the best meal I had was at the Stockyard Café—a classic greasy spoon, hall of fame diner. It’s located at the Amarillo stockyards and totally full of atmosphere, from the matronly waitresses who could whip out the food before you could get your napkin in your lap to the best green chili cheese burger I think I’ve ever had.

I got home late Thursday night, just in time to unpack and repack and hit the road on Friday with Rich and the horses. We are headed to a cutting clinic for two days of fun, fun, fun!

More later!

Julie

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More about the TV shoot...

Happy Day!

Finally it’s summer here (I hope) and I am actually wearing shorts and getting some color on my pathetically white legs (occupational hazard). Last week, during the shoot, we had two nights of frost, unusual for June and I lost some basil plants.

As I mentioned in the last post, we filmed five really good episodes last week. They will air on Horse Master July 30^th, August 6^th, 13^th, 20^th and 27^th.

The first episode we shot was about a mare that kicked and bit other horses when she is ridden in company. Actually, I didn’t think her problem was too severe and once I showed the owner how and when to correct her, the mare was pretty good. She just had never really been taught that that was unacceptable behavior.  This episode is about a very fundamental rule that all horses must learn—whenever humans are present, NO herd behaviors are allowed to be displayed and no interaction can take place between horses. They are perfectly capable of learning this rule but it has to be enforced with the harshest correction because this is a fundamental safety issue for both the humans and horses.

The second episode was about a spoiled pony. I was really impressed that Zeke, the 12 y/o owner, was able to change his way of handling the horse right away and the horse totally responded. The only thing lacking in that equation was leadership on Zeke’s part and once he stepped up to the plate, the mare was suddenly a perfect pony. BIG change in that horse! Mainly because of the big change in Zeke.

Our third episode was an 18 y/o Morgan/QH mare that had been used all her life as a cow pony and trail guide horse. She was a really sweet mare with an aggravating habit of walking off while you mount. Again, this is an example of a horse that was not trained properly—she clearly thought this was the right thing to do. I showed her new owner, Shantell, a simple exercise that would teach the horse to stand. Surprisingly, the mare totally got it the very first time I did the exercise! There’s a Q&A on my website about this exercise.

Fourth, we had Dave Currin, president of the National Versatility Ranch Horse Assn. www.nvrha.org. This episode will be all about the complicated and challenging competition, demonstrating each class and explaining the rules. With Dave, we worked on refining his cue for the flying lead change, which is required in the reining portion of the Working Ranch Horse class (reining, working cow and roping). Mainly what Dave’s horse needed was a pre-signal for the lead change—she needs to know what is coming. Just by preparing a little sooner for the lead change, his mare was able to pick up her lead change much smoother, with less cross-canter.

Finally, we had Linda and her Arab gelding, Stinger. In the 4 years that Linda has had Stinger, he has been riding “inverted”, with his head up in the air and his back hollowed out, rushing at the trot and canter. Linda’s main goal was to get him to slow down, put his head down and relax so that she could ride him on endurance rides. What I noticed right off the bat was that Stinger had a very poor saddle fit, with the front of the endurance saddle perched high on his shoulders and the back digging in hard into his loins. This “uphill” position of the saddle also positioned Linda poorly, with her leg way in front and her weight pressing on the cantle. This was most obvious when she tried to canter him—the canter requires him to round his back—so every time she cantered him he would crow hop and try to run off. It was a quick and easy fix for this little horse. All we did was change the saddle—putting my Circle Y Flex2 reining saddle on him—and he was a whole new horse. It was interesting and satisfying to see the big change in the horse and Linda was thrilled.

Now it’s back to regular life for me. I am trying to get more time in the saddle on my horse in preparation for some ranch horse events. Hopefully, things will be slowing down a little bit for me!

Until next time,

Julie

What a week!

Hello friends!

It's been a long week with hardly any room to breathe! No time to write on my blog, workout, soak in the hot tub or barely even eat!

Last weekend I had a great clinic in Vancouver WA on Saturday and Sunday. It was an easy clinic with a great group of riders who made tons of progress with their horses and their riding (those two are closely related).

On Monday morning I left for the airport at 4:30 am, arriving in Denver at 10:30, just in time to meet my film crew and make the three hour trek home to Salida. After the crew had a chance to look around the place and find all the good filming spots, we all sat down for a meeting over dinner to coordinate the next three days of filming, during which we would film five episodes of Horse Master.

It was absolutely wonderful to have the help of some of my best friends at this shoot. Twyla, who worked for me for years and helped me teach and train, helped supervise the practice sessions for the participants. My dear friend and neighbor, Cheryl, organizes my wardrobe and keeps me dressed right. Lucy, a close friend of many years, was there to meet and greet the participants in the show and do what she does best—keep everyone in good spirits and be the ultimate cheerleader; she also helped get horses ready. Allie, a young friend of Cheryl's was drafted into being a "grip" (show biz term for go-fer) and helped take care of my horse for me. She and Dually fell madly in love with each other; in fact, Allie asked her father if he would buy Dually for her if she promised to never have a boyfriend (she'll grow out of that soon!).

We also enjoyed (and abused) the help of two representatives from our sponsors: Tara from Nutramax Labs and Anne from Circle Y saddles. They both jumped in and got their hands dirty and helped with some valuable input on the show.

Of course, as always, I relied heavily on my professional crew. Heidi is the show producer and calls all the shots. She points me where to go and tells me what to say (not that I always listen). I fondly refer to her as my slave-driver and this week, she lived up to her name fully! Our camera crew was Bo and Steve; two highly talented videographers/editors, whose technical assistance was critical to the quality of the show.

Last but not least, I relied heavily (as always) on Brenda, my office manager. She was the "logistics queen" and kept everyone together, made sure we all had food and drink and all the props we needed. This on top of running the office at the same time. And of course, my dear husband Rich was busy grooming the arena, fixing fence, hanging banners and being the all-around fix-it guy. It takes a lot of people to make a TV show!

If you haven't seen the show yet, it's about a horse owner and their horse and how they might fix problems or improve their performance. Check it out each Wednesday at 5:30 EST or reruns on Thursday and Saturday nights on RFD-TV (Dish 9398 or Direct TV 379).

The show is the horse equivilant of the show called Super Nanny. We film five episodes at a time, starting with getting some "before" footage where they show us the "problem." Then there is an interview with the "cast member" during which the "B Roll" of their before footage is inserted. In the next segment, I work with the horse to sort him out then show the owner what they need to do to resolve the problem. Then the cast member has a day to practice (with Twyla supervising and making corrections); the next day we come back and film the progress they've made and talk about where to go from there.

We had five really cool episodes in this shoot and all of the horses made dramatic improvements (partly because their owner made dramatic improvements). There was Karen, whose cranky mare was a kicker and tried to bite and kick horses around her. Then there was Zeke, a young man with a very spoiled pony who dragged him around and walked all over him. And Shawntel, whose new horse had a "going" problem, not standing still for mounting and walking off without a cue. Dave, president of NVRHA (see the C Lazy U editions of my blog for more day by day stories about NVRHA) brought his show horse and demonstrated all the phases of versatility ranch horse competition. Dave needed to work on refinement in his riding and in particular on his flying lead changes for the reining pattern.

And finally there was Linda and her horse Stinger, who were quite possibly the most interesting episode of the week. What initially seemed like a training problem turned out to be a physical problem caused by an ill-fitting saddle. Once I put my Circle Y Flex2 Reining saddle on him and he transformed right before our eyes into a completely different horse!

Tomorrow, I'll fill you in on the grueling shoot schedule that we followed and how we dealt with the 12 hour days and the volatile mountain weather.

Until then, ride hard but ride safely!

Julie

C Lazy U-- the final episode!

Hello friends!

Here I sit, 38,000' above sea level, in route to Portland OR for a clinic this weekend in Vancouver WA. I love going to the Pacific NW—it's one of my favorite parts of the country and I have lots of friends there. I hear it's cold and rainy there, but as my father reminded me, it's not really summer yet. As they say in CO, summer is from July 1^st to July 4^th!

If I don't finish up on the last day of the C Lazy U VRH event, I may never be able to go on with my life, so it is my intention to put this incredibly good time to rest with this installment of my blog. When I left off last time, half of the competition day was complete at lunch time, with all 38 riders having completed Conformation, Ranch Cutting and Ranch Riding. The only remaining classes were Ranch Trail and Working Ranch Horse-- the nemesis of all VRH competitors.

BTW, I might mention that for me, this day started at about 5:30 am when I went down to feed the horses. Dually, a normally finicky eater, did not touch a bite of his breakfast. I thought that was odd, seeing's how I couldn't eat breakfast either, feeling sick to my stomach with the thought of the Working Ranch class. In fact, neither one of us ate much all day—both of us nibbling on a few pieces of hay during the lunch break.

It's a long, grueling day to complete this competition—your horse has to be warmed up and ready to go by 8:00a. If you're riding in the advanced class, as Rich and I were, and you have to do cutting first, that requires a lot of warm up. And if you are riding an over-zealous cow-eating monster like Dually, it requires even more. Finding the right amount of warm up for your horse to be ready and focused is an individual thing and something you have to learn by trail and error. I was really happy that at this show, I figured out the complicated timing between classes, the right amount of loping I needed to do to keep Dually both warmed up and focused and I was able to think my way through the hard classes without that "deer in the headlights" look n my face.

For Rich and I, the trail class was first. It was a pretty simple pattern—gate opening, bridge, trot poles (more like telephone poles), log drag in a figure eight (a little tricky when you circle left and the rope goes behind your horse's tail), side pass, de-bridle, ground tie. This stuff is pretty easy for Dually and we got through the pattern almost flawlessly. Then it was time to sit and wait as my stomach turned for the challenging Working Ranch Horse class. Naturally, I was one of the last riders to go SYMBOL 76 \f "Wingdings" \s 10

Working ranch horse is a timed class in which you have 6 minutes to complete all four phases of the class. It requires you to first ride a reining pattern, then you call for your cow and a single cow is let into the arena; then you "box" the cow at the end of the arena (which means you try to keep him at the center of the rail and show that your horse can control the cow); then you take the cow down the long rail, past the center marker, turn him around, pass the center marker again and turn him back—making two turns at a fairly high speed. Finally, when your fence work is done, you get your rope out, build a loop and rope him and stop him. There's a LOT going on in this one class and you really have to think your way through.

For Dually and I, the reining pattern is easy. Actually, for Dually, it's all easy—I'm the one that's a little green on some of the cow work. Dually was a little worked up about being one of the last horses to go and started off a little hot on the reining but then settled into his job. Once the cow was let in, he was all business. We had a cow that was just right (there's a little bit of luck of the draw here)—he gave us a challenge but was not a wild thing. We did a fine job of boxing and putting into play what I had learned from Sandy Collier the day before, I executed perfect strategy and got my cow lined up to go down the rail nicely, turning him back in two quick turns. I had plenty of time and could've showed my horse a little more but I didn't want to get too fancy and take unnecessary risks.

After the second turn, I backed off the cow as I got my rope down to build a loop. I had set up my rope perfectly so in short order I had the loop I needed and was ready to throw. When I looked up, I was approaching the sweet spot in the arena where Merrit had showed me was the perfect place to throw. As I started swinging, the loop caught on my arm so I had to swing a extra time. Then I let it fly and the loop settled perfectly over the cow's head.

Momentarily, I was SHOCKED I had actually caught, but my instincts kicked in and I kicked up Dually and rode to the cow, gathering up the slack in the rope so that I could dally. Dually had me in perfect position the whole time and he knows his job so well that it made it easy for me. We dallied and stopped the cow to the cheers of the crowd (all eight of whom were my friends ;-)

What fun! My first cow in competition and we rode the whole working ranch horse class with strategy and thoughtfulness. By roping the cow I feel like a huge monkey has been lifted off my back.

As I said, because this schooling competition did not have an open division, my scores did not count for anything other than letting me know where I am at. If we had counted, I think we would've done pretty well, especially since we did well in halter. So I have to be happy with that.

After the awards ceremony, where our group picked up LOTS of ribbons, we all jumped in a can and headed to Grand Lake for a lovely dinner and many toasts. The next morning we hit the road and headed home with the horses, tired, but with lots of wonderful memories. It took several days before we were all rested back to normal.

Rich and I head to a cutting clinic in a couple weeks then we'll try to get in another event. I have almost all of July and August to focus on riding and training and showing and I am really looking forward to that. Finally I have the story finished!

Until next time,

Julie

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Competition Day at C Lazy U

Hello again,

After two days and two nights at the five-star (AAA and Mobile) guest ranch,  HYPERLINK "http://www.CLazyU.com" www.CLazyU.com, we were getting accustomed to the fine dining, the luxurious accommodations and resort atmosphere. After a full eight hours in the saddle, concentrating hard on cramming as much information as we could into our brains from the five-star clinicians, it was time to put all the stuff we learned in the four half-day clinics into a schooling competition for Versatility Ranch Horse.

VRH is a challenging competition, to say the least, testing just about every Western discipline there is. One horse/rider (rider must be owner) competes in five different classes including conformation, trail obstacles, ranch riding (similar to a Dressage pattern), ranch cutting (cut and pen) and working ranch horse (reining, boxing cow, fence work, roping and stopping cow). They are all individual performances and all five classes are usually held in one day.

The rules and procedures are different every where you go in this country, but AQHA is the standard rule book since they have been doing it the longest and in the biggest numbers and AQHA hosts the VRH World Championships, held at the Denver Stock Show in January. The event we participated in at C Lazy U was sanctioned by  HYPERLINK "http://www.NVRHA.com" www.NVRHA.com and was open only to participants of the 2-day clinic that preceded the competition, amateur riders only, divided into three divisions: novice, intermediate and advanced. The novice riders are coached all the way through each class by the clinicians or other participants and they are not required to fence the cow, rope the cow or drag the log; in the halter class, their horse is not judged on conformation, but rather on the handler's showmanship ability.

The conformation/showmanship class was held Sunday night right before dinner after riding all day in the clinic with the horses dirty and stinky. Since I had quit on Dually earlier in the day he was dry and fairly clean (technically the judges don't care about this because they know they are judging working horses, but a shiny clean horse is much more pleasant to look at and if I am going to show my horse, I am going to go for every possible point I can get. In fact, in VRH, the conformation score factors back into the performance scores so a horse that does well in conformation gets extra points in performance too. After a quick stop at the wash rack with some high pressure spray-and-rinse and Dually's four white socks were clean. While I was at it, I washed down the legs of six other horses and then gave my friends a CRASH course in showmanship.

Then it was time for the conformation class and all 40 horses get judged by division. The advanced horses come in first, one at a time and have their legs judged for straightness and movement, then line up head to tail on the far wall and wait for all the other thirty something horses to be judged. After all legs & trot  have been scored, the judged comes back to judge conformation, taking a look at each horse individually for structure and balance, then the judge rearranges the line up in each division by who he likes best, second, and so on. Dually placed third in the advanced division; Tucker was his usual middle-to-back of the pack because his is not straight legged. This is very unfortunate in VRH because a horse that does not do well in conformation has to seriously out-perform the horse that scores well in halter. If Tucker would place higher in conformation, Rich would be coming home with tons of blue ribbons. The rest of our group was in the novice division and placed well, with Jeannie winning and the other guys placing.

At the barn at 6am the next morning to be ready to ride at 8; it was a beautiful Memorial Day morning. There were eight of us in the group: Lucy had to scratch because her awesome ranch horse, Dodger  HYPERLINK "http://juliegoodnight.com/horses/dodger.html" http://juliegoodnight.com/horses/dodger.html , was a little off; Patti & Pascale, my dear friends from Kauai were riding two of our sale horses, Renegade and Tequlo (whom they had only met a couple days before so were just getting to know); Cheryl, my dear friend from next door was riding her dream-horse (and the star of my riding videos, vol 3-4-5), Gracie; and Jeannie, our friend from MD was riding a borrowed horse that none of us knew anything about (although Jeannie had learned a lot about him in the past two days). They were all entered in the novice division and had never done any of this before; Rich and I rode in the advanced division on our own horses Tucker and Dually. Rich and Tucker have been competing for a few years and generally do well. I had only competed once on Dually last year; my score would not count in this show because there was no open (pro) division in this schooling competition. Or as they said at the awards ceremony, I was both first and last place in my own division SYMBOL 74 \f "Wingdings" \s 10 That works for me because I just wanted to school my horse, learn the complicated machinations of this event, so I know what to work on in preparation for an AQHA VRH event.

There were about 38 riders divided in half—one group did the cutting class while the other group rode the ranch riding pattern—then we switched groups so that by lunch, all 38 riders had done both ranch cutting and ranch riding (half of the performance classes). Typically the advanced group goes first in cutting because that is when the cows are freshest and tend to be running in all directions with their tails straight up. In VHR, you have 2 and a half minutes to walk into a group of 20 or so cows, and find the one with a specific number glued to its back (they yell out the number as they start your time), sort that cow out from the herd, move it to the middle of the arena and then keep it cut away from the herd. Two turnback riders assist you so the cow doesn't just run away from you all the way to the other end. After you have showed your horse's ability to keep the cow away from the herd, you then take the cow around a cone and down to the other end of the arena and into a pen (your turnback people cannot help you with that).

Rich was second up in the class and had a really good cut, worked the cow nicely then had a good pen; he placed third. This only being my second competition, I was very happy with myself that I got the cutting part down well. I positioned Dually right into the middle of the herd, slowly brought out my cow to the middle and let the other cows drift off, then we went to cutting. Considering I was concerned about Dually's over-exuberance on the cow because he was too fresh, I thought we had a really good cut. It was a squirrely cow and it got away from me when I went to pen him, but over all I was pretty happy with our performance.

Next came the ranch riding. This is a class that Rich & Tucker normally score well in and one that is pretty easy for Dually and I. There's a reason why they don't want pros to compete against amateurs and the reason why is because of the unfair advantage we have of knowing how to do all this stuff already! Many facets of this competition are very complex and challenging and someone who's been riding and doing this stuff professionally for a lifetime has infinite advantage over someone that has only been riding a few years and perhaps never even shown. In the ranch riding class, you ride a pre-ordained pattern making specific transitions at cones placed strategically around the arena. The point is to show that your horse is well trained and responsive and a pleasure to ride; he can perform well at every working gait of the ranch horse. The pattern is similar to a dressage test, but you just ride around the rail. The required transitions are: walk to trot, trot to extended trot, to regular trot, halt, lope off on right lead, extend lope, regular lope, lope to walk (hard to execute well) then halt and halt to trot (also very hard), then trot to left lead canter, canter to trot (again hard), halt and back. All of those are executed at specific markers. I practice all of these transitions every time I ride in the arena, at the cones that are permanently set up as markers. Some might think this is boring but to be able to execute these transitions smoothly and with precision takes a lot of skill and practice and it almost impossible to score a perfect pattern.

Well, this is the third time in the past 24 hours that I have worked on this blog and I am only half way through the competition day. It has occurred to me long before now that this C Lazy U blog is going to have to have one more post! Heidi, my aforementioned slave driver and the reason I even know what a blog is, keeps telling me to keep it short! So I'd better go ahead and post and try and finish this thing up tomorrow. We still have the trail class to go plus the nemesis of all VRH riders: the working ranch horse class—it's a killer! For now, it's almost eight o'clock, I just got in from riding and we haven't even thought about dinner yet. A typical summer night when we don't eat until 9:00!

Thank you for all your meaningful comments—it's nice to know someone is actually reading this stuff and interested in it, since I am taking time to do it. I am actually enjoying writing it but finding the time each day is tough. Anyway, keep reading and keep those comments coming in.

Enjoy the ride!

Julie

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