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Toledo Rodeo

The rodeo weekend was not a very good one. Jayden and her horse are in a bit of a rut that hopefully she can get out of. Friday night would be a new experience for us all. Jayden was attempting to hit two rodeos in one night. It can be done and many people do it. She entered in the performance at one and the slack at the other. They were about 45 minutes apart drive. We started with the rodeo in Toledo. I can remember my first offical IRCA rodeo was at Toledo on my palomino, Billy.  I was in slack which was before the rodeo. I also remember very clearly I ran in a muddy arena and my horse barely loped. It is not a nice arena after a rain. Well, Toledo got a lot of rain and the arena was a mess. At first glance it didnt look too bad, however watching the livestock and horses trying to move in it was another story. Right where the first barrel was set, was deep sloppy mud that all the animals would sink in. It was almost to the horses knees. We watched the events of the night as people got boots pulled off in the mud and horses walked funny in the sinking mud. First Jayden entered and discovered they had her entered in both rodoes for performance which is not possible. There was some miscommunication, but Dad stepped in and did some talking. Bub Goings also offered to let his daughter Emily trade spots with Jayden and his daughter would run slack. I thought that was very kind and Emily was more than happy to switch. They are good people and it didn't surprise me as Bub is the kind of guy that would give the shirt off his back. Things were set and Jayden was the 14th barrel racer out of 15. I told her that since she was far enough down the list we could watch all the other barrel racers and see if they have any problems. If anyone slips or falls, we can draw out and not run. The horses had quite a time running in the heavy mud, a couple horses ran like it was nothing, others struggled, but nobody had any close calls or major problems. Jayden's horse was being gate sour and had to have a horse on each side to get in. Ace ran towards the first barrel and that is when his nose went down, front legs, and the rest of him. My heart stopped and I was scared. It happened so fast. It was a bad fall, but it could have been worse.  I hope I never see that happen again. Ace picked himself back up, didn't go over I think because the mud was so thick it pulled him down. Jayden walked him right out and he had a nose full of mud. Praise the Lord she was not hurt, nor her horse. I said many prayers like I always do before the run and I was saying many after. We walked Ace to the trailer and his legs were thick with mud. I ran the mud off his boots and could roll it into a ball like sticky play doh. A random cowboy parked by us asked Jayden if her horse was ok. He was being helpful, told us where the wash rack was, shined a light for us while I used a knife to cut off a bell boot that broke. There are kind rodeo cowboys out there, there are some genuinely kind. I am sure my pretty daughter helped too. My parents were down for the night watching and had plans to take the boys the rest of the weekend, so they went on home with them. After checking Ace over we decided he was ok and would head on to Maxwell, rodeo number two. The Toledo rodeo was very long and drawn out with entertainment, wild horse race, and a drill team. We knew it was going to be tight getting to the rodeo. Wouldn't you know Maxwell would be the rodeo with very little slack and they moved things along quickly. Jayden's youth group leader, Donna was there watching all night anxious to finally see Jayden run. As we were driving she was giving us updates and asking Jayden all kinds of funny rodeo questions. Then she heard them call Jayden's name 3 times and we were at least 20 minutes away. Slack was over before we even hit the Maxwell exit off 30, so we drove on towards home. What a deal, she will have to pay entry fee $65 plus a $25 penalty for a no show. After Ace going down, I was ok with missing the second rodeo. We also learned not to try and push it with 2 rodeos in one night.

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