The day of the camp horse show was the day I decided to sell my beloved horse Henry. He came to me without any barrel training, but he was FAST! Well, no matter how hard I tried, we just could not make it work on the barrels. The tricky thing about barrel racing is you run really fast, but your horse also needs to be able to check himself, tuck in his haunches, and turn a barrel – all while maintaining good speed. All Henry heard was SPEED!!! He just wanted to run, and more often than not we would run into the arena and right past the first barrel. Henry was a great horse, and the situation was very much the blind leading the blind. I was learning to barrel race at the same time I was teaching him. I’m sure that Henry would have made a fantastic barrel horse with a more experienced trainer on his back. Either way, camp was the last straw. We came running into the arena, here comes the first barrel!…and there went the first barrel… by the time we got back to the pattern, even the little beginner kids had beat our time. It was an embarrassing experience, but also very sad. It was time for me to get an experienced barrel horse and let my precious Henry go to a new home.
That wasn’t the only exciting thing to happen that day. This may not have been mentioned before, but I grew up with 2 older brothers. That means I spent my life trying to keep up with the boys. My shining moment from the last day of camp was the steer riding competition. You may be thinking, “steer? I thought it was called bull riding!” Kids usually compete on steers – they are smaller without the mean streak. All the guys (including Justin) that I had spent the week with were entering the steer riding competition. Not to be shown up by the guys I decided to give it a go. Hitting the dirt is one of my least favorite things, but my pride hitting the dirt is even worse. Somehow I drew the final ride, so I got to watch the other riders go first. There were only 2 other female campers who had what it took to get on a steer, so they were my competition. I watched as both of them came out of the chute and hit the dirt within 3 seconds – the goal is 8 seconds! WIMPS! But now it was my turn. My insides were turning flips. I was about to get on a steer in front of my new boyfriend and all the other guys at camp. I HAD to stay on for 8 seconds, but what if he bucked hard and I came off? It can’t be any harder than a bucking horse, but then again I usually have a saddle with a bucking horse. What if I break my arm or my leg or even worse – my pride? and even worse than all of that, in front of Justin and the other guys.
I walked on jello legs towards the chute my steer was waiting in…
Come back tomorrow to see how it all ended!
Lesson for the day: Sometimes letting go really is the best thing, but noone ever said it would be easy.
Soli deo gloria
~Sarah
Recent Comments