So off we go to Bernalillo, NM for a National Senior Pro Rodeo. We arrived Thursday late in the afternoon, expecting to find pens......well there were pens, I guess. Not ones that I would put any living thing in, horses especially since they will try to self -destruct. So, that said, we built a hot fence, which we have always used. This time however was different, we had two extra horses with us that had never been in one, nor had Kelly's new head horse. All seemed well, so off to dinner with the folks. Once we came back, we separated off the one horse that we were told did not play nice with others, and all seemed fine.
Until we got up Friday morning. Kelly comes in and says that I need to come look at his horse he is bleeding pretty badly. Great, just what I need. Seems all three horses ended up in the same pen and had some kind of altercation. After washing Buddy's hind pastern off, trying to remove all the silt/sand that was in it (did I mention the ground there could put any beach to shame - welcome dust!!) I lifted the flap of skin and told Kelly "This is a bit out of my league to fix." Off to the hospital with Buddy, from first appearance we have tendon sheath damage as well as some tendon damage. So surgery here we come. The good news of this one was that no tendon or sheath damage! Yeah!
Saturday, Kelly borrows a horse, and not exactly sure what happens, but he catches his steer, dallies and goes left while watching his heeler catch (this is all normal). Well Mr Borrowed Horse tries to go down the arena, Kelly tries to make him go up the arena. Kelly looses and goes head first into the fence. And to think I missed shooting this (I was tempted to ask him to re-enact it so I could get the shot but thought better of it). No one was hurt except Kelly's ego.
Sunday, Kelly stays on his borrowed horse (what a relief!!) but between his missing and his heeler missing - enough said. He did however receive a bunch of ribbing from all the guys. Photos of the Performance - well, shot all day to find out I had a malfunction and got zero shots of the performance!! Buddy is picked up today and has to be babied since having surgery along with a cast on his leg. It was added for extra support for the trip home.
I am so ready for the weekend to be over!! But it's not.
Monday morning, we are awakened by a horse screaming for his pals. Seems this horse's new best friends were the three we had with us. Look out the window and low and behold hot fence is down. We jump up, and head out to catch them. Of course they were right there on the rodeo grounds milling about - NOT!!! One of the stock contractors tells us that they headed out the gate, down the lane and were headed up the hill to Walmart. (Did I mention Walmart is about a mile away as the crow flies from the rodeo grounds.) Yes, Walmart. Now panic sets it - Walmart parking lots and loose horses don't really mix and if they made it to Walmart it was going to be a trick to round them all up before one gets hurt. Oh wait - one is hurt and is running around with a cast on. It took 5 of us to catch them. We got Buddy caught before Walmart, but the other two decided to see how nice the parking lot was. Once they realized their pal was missing they turned around and came back at a dead run. I wanted to kill ALL of them! We get everyone caught and trek back to the rodeo grounds. All were promptly tied up until we could pack everything up and leave.
I have never been so happy for a weekend to be OVER.
