7/8/16 Another day on the rodeo road.
Today Jayden hauled with her friend Allison P. She is 24 years old and has a fun personality. She comes
to ride in our arena on occasion. The girls left at 11 for slack that started
at 1 in Rockwell City. I drove up later to watch. It was a hot sunny day but
without the humidity it was very tolerable. There were 58 barrel racers. Jayden
was having a smoking run, she ran a tight first and a tight second. I can watch
a run and know if they are going to have one of the top times. I can watch for
little mistakes, pauses, extra steps, or just a little wider barrel. I can see
every little error and know if their time is going to make a check before I even
hear it. Sometimes I can even guess their time within a couple hundredths. Jayden had a winning run going until the third barrel. She knocked
going into it and she has gotten into the habit of grabbing a barrel to save it
from falling. It may have helped her once or twice, but the leaning is a bad
bad thing and her horse can feel her lean and throw him off balance too. We
have been telling her she needs to quit doing that. Today she reached and
learned a hard lesson. She ended up on the ground on her rear. She was lucky to
land well and not get hurt. She was pretty embarrassed and not to happy about
it. She had someone she knows give her a fist bump and said he’d of tried to
save it too. Fortunately it was at the end of slack and not in a performance, so not too many people saw her. The hard part was knowing how good her run could have been. I have not doubt it
would have been a money winning run. A hard lesson to learn, and hard on the rear.
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