My Horse...

Is made of contrary.

I talk about how good he's been doing the few days before the show, and he dumps me.... rather spectacularly.... and gives me a set of bruises and sore spots that are extremely inconvenient.

Saddle horns are quite hard and when your horse tries to give you a colonoscopy with one it makes for a quite painful few days.

The ground didn't hurt me that bad, I managed to roll and just bumped my head a little. But, since I was asleep at the wheel, Dipstick The Rough Stock Wonder got me up on the horn (trust me guys, it hurts when a girl gets racked too) and then in front of the horn for a couple of jumps.

Of course, he was being good and I was being nice, so he had a nice loose rein.... so I was a long way from having his head. I knew about the third jump I was coming off, it was just a matter of doing it where I wouldn't land on someone.

So yeah, bruised my tailbone, got nice big bruises in spots that I don't usually show until after the third date, and generally sored myself up the day before the show.

Getting on him yesterday was an exercise in self-torture. But, the show must go on. And, it was highly amusing for everyone around me to listen to me whimper when I swung my leg over him. Marilyn in particular was entertained.

Warmup... Monkey was a spazz. He spooked at people walking by the round pen, where we'd gone because I didn't know what he was going to do and there were a lot of people to run into in the arena if things did go rodeo. Then he spooked at a tumble weed in the arena. It wasn't even blowing, it was just up against the fence. Twitchy, spooky, wouldn't pick up his left lead for love or money.

I spent most of my conversational time telling everyone that as long as he didn't kill me, I'd be happy.

Marilyn's parting comment before I went in the arena to do my pattern was "Keep the horse between you and the ground."

And we won.

No joke, that contrary piece of horseflesh won the show, after all of the crap he put me through, after piling my ass in front of god and everybody, he won. Not without making me want to cry and fall out of the saddle when he jumped out of a rollback and shoved me back into the cantle, of course, but he won.

And you can't tell that I'm about to wet myself on the video, which I'll try to edit (the software that came with the camera is crap) and get posted asap.

Five hundred dollar scholarship for next semester, makes my wallet happy, but right now I'm still sore as hell... I kept myself loose enough yesterday because I stretched everything out when I got up, then didn't slow down long enough to stiffen up again. Today, my body is making me pay for making it ride yesterday.

Neck, back, a little on the ribs, of course my tailbone and extreme inner upper right thigh (big ol' lovely bruise there, too) are really sore. Then there's the all over body-ache, which is easy enough to deal with. I just sit down suddenly, or at the wrong angle, and I forget all about the muscle aches.

Farmmom is over the moon, of course. I thought she was gonna bust when our portion of the show was over and I had the high score.

During the awards presentation, I just knew that Marilyn was being evil to me when she announced a new award. The Ground Greeter's Award.

Fortunately, two of the HTM students tied for that one, with Marilyn telling me later that they had "a couple" more buck-offs than I did.

I just knew I was going to have to wave my hat and smile for the crowd while I was plotting how best to get revenge. Instead I got to cheer for the winners and laugh.

But, we won, the horses are home, I get to heal up until next weekend when we work cows again, and I got accolades from HTM students that have spent a lot of time looking down on us lowly EBMers, simply for getting back on my horse after he went rodeo, and riding the next day.

Well, what else was I supposed to do?