Mustang Saga

Mustang Days - Show Day

This beautiful Warm Springs mustang is Katya. I never caught her owner's name but she was a really nice person. Katya was very well behaved and had the most beautiful dapples but they don't show up in this picture.

Trotting in Shomanship.

Standing, watching people get their ribbons.

I left John with my horse for a minute and this is what they did.

This belgian mare was beautiful, and check out the neat tail braid.

This little girl was turning heads everywhere she went. I think they said she was a Sicillian miniature donkey. She had the cutest little trot!

Again, standing and waiting at the end of the class.
Tracey told me afterward that we would have placed better if I held my hands in the proper way for Showmanship. Silly rules, but if I play the game I have to follow the rules.

Backing around a cone

I like this next picture, other than that I'm having to pull on my horse. He wasn't paying attention well all day. He loves to look at other equines, especially the long-ears. And you should have seen all the ear pinning he was doing. Of course I'm not going to share pictures of that. :) Behind us is the photographer's table. Check out LorySue Enterprises for professional photos from this year and last year. We really appreciate her being there.

The open halter class. There were even more horses lined up on the other side of us. It was a big class. I think this is the only one we did that we didn't place in. Tonka isn't built for Halter.

Visiting in the arena during a break:

In-hand trail. He looks like a mule!

Love that horsey butt.

Pepper & Katie, after the Ride-a-Buck class.

Soxy's leg was doing so well I hopped on (with much difficulty) for the Ride-a-Buck. She was antsy as all getout, herdbound and wanting Tonka, but we did alright until they called for a lope. She doesn't lope well on her gimp leg anyway, and that's the leg that was kicked, so I didn't lope and I handed over my dollar. It was fun though, and the guy who won was definitely a better rider than me anyway.

See, there's our buck:

So, in the end, we won three 2nd place ribbons in mustang classes, a 4th place in an open class, and a first place in the in-hand trail. I'm not sure on that one whether it was open or mustang. They were supposed to have both classes but we only did the class once so I don't know if they decided to drop one or what. We didn't get to do either of our ridden trail classes so I don't know how we would have done there. We couldn't have loped, but the rest of it was really easy, so I like to think we would have done somewhat well. There was so much confusion and I didn't even watch the other horses do it so I don't know what the competition was like.

When it was time to load up I was a little worried about how willing Soxy would be to get in after her experience on the way here. She just walked right in. No problem. The trip home was blissfully uneventful. I let Soxy unload herself and graze while I went in to unload Tonka. All the sudden there was this deafening whinny - Soxy had stuck her head back in the trailer and was hollering at us to come with her. She's so cute.

In conclusion on my experience with Zaz, he did not find a new home, so he went back with his owner. I hope the trailer trip home was better than the trip there. She has enough room in her trailer to leave a space between him and the next horse, so I think it probably went okay. It's weird not to have him here in his pen. Weird to only have 5 horses on the place. But good.

This morning I went out and "grazed" with Tonka. It took a minute to convince him to follow me, but then we went for a wander in the pasture and I picked grass while he grazed, then I'd give him my grass and pick more while he grazed, and we just wandered around like that. I sat for a while and he ate grass out of my lap. It was very nice to have some good bonding time, and I think he was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't asking for anything more. I really needed that quiet time to get some perspective on how the weekend went. I feel a lot better about it now, and I've remembered it's not about classes and buckles, it's about friends and relationships.

Today I'm going to try to take it easy, since I can't get a hay rake until this afternoon. John wants to try to be home in time to do the raking so I may not even have to do that. Although I do need to learn how to do it so I can pick up where he leaves off when he goes to his real job in the morning.