April 13 , 2008 - Santa Anita Ranch in Tres Pinos, CA

Entered in the "150 Novice" class - use of rein is allowed.
Gabilan Cutters

It was a hot (90) and sunny dry day. Ruby chowed down a full flake of alfalfa hay on the way down to Tres Pinos and was full of energy. We warmed up for at least an hour. She was dripping wet when we stopped warming up and went to the side of the pen to watch the riders in the class before us. Ruby and I were last of 7 riders in the class. As we waited to go in the gate, it became obvious that she was upset about something--her head was high and her neck was like concrete and nothing I did with the reins was softening her. Billy told me before we walked to the herd to lengthen my reins which I did, but apparently not evenly.


We walked calmly into the herd. My rein hand is too high and the left rein is shorter than the right.
I'm looking at cutting that black cow straight out from us. We have a nice clear path to it, and the cattle are walking slowly out. Ruby's head is tipped because the left rein is too tight and I'm pulling up and back toward my shoulder rather than center.
As the cattle started to peel off to the left, Ruby suddenly leapt at the closest one and tried to bite it, following it all the way to the back fence (not pictured). "Turning tail" = disqualification (but the judge gave us 60 anyway) .
For several seconds, she pranced in place while I tried to regain control. Looks like dressage, doesn't it
Still out of control
Still out of control

Okay, we have her turned the right way. Between the herd holders and turnback riders, there were still a few cows out in front of us.
Okay, let's see if we can work this black one.

Ruby's still not focused and despite pressure, is not moving to get into position with the cow.

At this point, I think Billy was just telling me to slow things down. Let's start from here.
We need to get in position.

I think the fence turned this cow. The cow didn't want to deal with that crazy horse, so it went back to play with Billy doing turnback on this side.

We're just going to hold the line and turn with the cow.
You can tell by how Ruby's flipping her tail around that she's still upset.

Billy sent the cow back to us and Ruby hooked on and turned it.
Pretty good position

This was not a smooth move

Fortunately the cow slowed down and Ruby relaxed a little
Pretty good position

What's that look in her eye? Terror?
This was a slow, easy turn, but she over reacted and made it a dramatic move
This makes a nice picture (except for the pinned ears) but her over-reaction made it difficult to stay in position when the cow moved back to its left

So the cow has turned but we're late
Nice photography of these 4 slides captures this quick turn

Good thing this cow was slow. We managed to hold it away.
The cow went back to the fence and then turned to go visit Billy again, so we went back to get a second cow.

Hoping that Ruby had wore herself out in the preceding 2 minutes, we set our sights on that black cow in the middle of the photo. My rein hand is lower this time as we pushed em out.
Suddenly (again) Ruby decided she had to hold ALL the cows in front of her and started to cut the bunch!
Gosh darn it, here we are out of control again, hanging on while she bounces back and forth.

Got the selection down to two. I still wanted the black one; she wanted the yellow one.
Whoa, baby, stay with me on this black one.
This photo was taken either right before or just after she bucked and for a moment all 4 hooves were off the ground.

Ugh, pulling her around with the reins again. Gotta stop doing that.
The buzzer had gone off, but we worked another few seconds while we had a single cow in front of us.

We got a 60--last place out of 7 riders in the 150 Novice class. What an embarassing disaster! Here's what we learned from today:
1. Do not feed a hot horse alfalfa for breakfast on the way to a show.
2. Warm up without my hat so that I can gallop my horse for hours without worrying about the hat flying off.
3. Gallop my horse for hours. Do not stop to watch the class before mine to give my horse time to cool off and refresh.
4. Showing: do not raise my rein hand so high the rein is tight - keep rein hand in the center of the horse.
5. Looser rein, more leg direction.
6. If a practice is offered that day or the day before, GO so that we both have more time to work with a herd.

A couple other notes:

Ruby was in season and grouchy as heck. Even during the warm up, she fought me while doing circles.

Second, my rig is in the shop to correct a trailer braking problem, so we were bound to the Eddy Ranch the day before (Saturday) instead of going down to the Graham Hill showgrounds to work and get her tired. Also, some of the things I need for a show (like hair spray to hold on my hat) were in the trailer, so during our warm up, when my hat kept coming loose, it was real distracting and ultimately the reason we stopped warming up. The hat did come off and of course, she spooked big time when it floated to the ground behind us. That may have been the moment she lost her mind for the rest of the afternoon. I really, really miss my truck and trailer.

We also are trying out a new type of saddle pad. This is only the second time I've put it on her. It's not as thick as the green suede-covered fleece pad or the black wool pad, so maybe there's a little bit more sensitivity to my movement.

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