June 21 , 2008 - Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds - Watsonville, CA
Entered in the "150 Novice" class - use of rein is allowed.
Gabilan Cutters
The last show of the season for our cutting club was held at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville (California). Overall, I think my mare and I did very well, considering my riding ability and our newness to the sport. We placed 4th overall on the year in our class of about 15 beginners. |
But cutting was not what was on my mind most of the day. Friday afternoon a fire that apparently began from a car's backfire ignited very dry grass along Highway One. We are in a drought, but that hardly matters because it doesn’t rain here from April to October or November anyway and things are just unbelievably dry, and we are having literally record-breaking heat. On Friday, it was 103 in Watsonville—which is incredible for being on the Monterey Bay coast – it was much warmer inland. |
Anyway, the fires quickly went up the hillside and spread into Larkin Valley where there are dozens of ranchettes, engulfing about 600 acres of homes and barns before everything living could be evacuated. I know of at least 15 horses that perished, along with a devastating number of dogs and cats, a few cows, some llamas, pigs, chickens and other livestock. |
| Anyway, we drove past the devastation on the way to the fairgrounds yesterday morning. The fire was about 90 percent contained, but the destruction was just heartbreaking. The fairgrounds is often used for livestock evacuation, and the barns were filled up with all breeds and sizes of horses and ponies and who knows what else. We parked in a small field next to the last row of barns, and as we got our horses ready, we were watched by evacuated llamas whose heads just barely cleared the barn doors. A KRON news truck showed up and interviewed the owner of the llamas. She had gotten all but two of her herd out alive. One of her llamas had burn injuries and our vet showed up and treated it. A little later, the Salvation Army came by letting everyone know they had lunch for any of the evacuees. When I was riding from the trailer to the warm-up arena, we went past a woman speaking to an evacuation official just as she was saying that this was the fourth evacuation point she’d been to and still was unable to locate her horses. Where else can they be? My heart just ached for her. |  |
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The heat of the day--it got up to about 97--turned into something we seldom experience on the coast. A couple of big thunderstorm cells came through our area. We had lightning all around us. We could see smoke rise up from the wooded hills around the fairgrounds as lightning ignited new fires that burned for several days before they could be extinguished. |  |
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My friend, Donna, usually competes in the cutting classes with her mare, Trixie, but Trixie was lame, so we brought along my other mare, Bella (not a cutter) so that Donna could ride and play on a horse today. When we got a heavy shower from this first thunderstorm cell, she took shelter under the overhang of the barn. |  |
 And when the lightning got close, we joined her. |
That cell passed and we looked to the west for the next cell coming in - forks of lightning were streaking down from those dark clouds, but the show went on! |  |
| My husband, Michael, came to the show to watch us and record a video. |  Yea, Michael! |
Around 2:30 PM, It was finally our class, and I was the last rider of six people competing. Laura won the class with a 71. When it was my turn, that second scary storm cell was right over us, and the skys let loose with a downpour of huge rain drops just as we approached the herd. The show's photographer scrambled to protect his equipment, so the first part of my go isn't recorded.
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 First cow cut was a good one. |
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 The spots in these photos are big raindrops! We were getting soaked! |
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 All during this go, we had lightning and thunder and rain. Ruby was nervous as heck. |
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 We settled on this white cow who was also nervous as heck. |
 I'm trying to keep my horse moving forward to push this cow away from the herd and keep it in the center. C'mon, Ruby, move! |
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 The cow faked left and then went right. We were out of position and couldn't catch up. |
 Go! Go! Go! |
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 Ruby leaps and pops me up. |
 Too late. The cow ran in front of us, and I put on the brakes. |
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 The herd holder behind me suggested just taking one off the front. |
 But we got a bunch of volunteers away from the fence. |
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 The brown one looked okay, but the black one looked slower. Look at that tail action on my horse. |
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 The black one wasn't slow, but we had a good turn with it and stayed in position. |
 Here's Ruby's trademarked "Turn-and-Pop-Up" manuever |
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When the buzzer went off, the rain had stopped, and this cow was just standing still in the middle of the pen, so we had no further action. Our score was a 65 -- too bad we lost that white cow. Overall I was pleased with Ruby. With all the distractions around us, she held it together pretty well. | Went back to the trailer and untacked. Took care of business with the photographer, and by the time we were getting ready to leave, the sky had cleared and it was a gorgeous sunny (and cooler) day, although there were still fires going on around us from lightning strikes. |
 Bella had been patiently tied to the trailer during the lightning storm, so she got to graze a little ... |
 ...before we loaded up and took off. |
 An evacuated llama looks over its new surroundings. |
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You can just barely see some of the white smoke from one of the new fires in the distance (close to the top of the barn) Donna is very helpful in backing out of places, so I stood by while she manuevered back to the road. Though it looks like we were in this field by ourselves, there were several other rigs and a power pole behind and to the sides of us. |