The reason for having to be up and gone so early was my sister. Well, her horse anyways. Patches used to belong to me, but J has always loved her, and so I sold Patches to J's husband for a birthday surprise. She hadn't even had her a month when Patches cut her foot something awful. So...off to the vet (at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning) we go. BTW - it looked like this :
Barftastic. The Awesome Doc at Equine Surgery and Medicine fixed her right up (after making J gag several times, lol) and she has to go back in two weeks for a cast to curb the development of proud flesh.
Saturday afternoon was spent swimming with the kids and giving Luna a bath. She sure is pretty all cleaned up. Then we headed off to the barrel race! Where we ran the most awful run that we have ever ran. It started off well. We came in the gate going all out, Luna's little ears laid back flat on her head, my heart pounding and everything just felt right. Then....a part of my attire got caught on the saddle horn. I panicked going into the first turn and accidentally pushed her past the barrel.
The second barrel went just as badly but it was because Miz Luna decided that we were just gonna be done and as she came out of the turn she headed for the gate, lol. I wasn't expecting that. So we got lined out and the third barrel was a beauty but by then it was far, far too late. Arrrg! It's okay. We had a good time running and it was also neat because it was the first time any of my family had come to see us run (probably another reason the run was horrid - I was nervous!). Besides, I vented my frustrations while I was untacking Luna. I calmly and cheerfully, in a nice and soothing voice, told her exactly what I thought of her turn around the second barrel, that I should have named her Alpo, that her grandma was a yak...and so on and so forth.
Sunday morning dawned to a phone call from a gentleman that needed help. He had taken in two yearlings out of pity and they were in real bad shape. He had enough honesty and courage to admit when he was in trouble. He brought them that afternoon, a filly and a stud colt. They are both Appaloosas (unpapered, of course) and barely handleable at all. The filly is the one with the red halter and the skunky look to her tail.
They both have wounds from being run through a barbed wire fence by a large stallion. If you thought the above wound pictures were nasty, you might want to just skip the rest of this.
Looks awful, doesn't it? Fortunately, both of the poor things are sound with no limp or lameness which would indicate major trouble. As bad as it looks, it is a flesh wound, and should heal with time and care. Since the wounds were already a few days old, we cleaned and medicated them after speaking with our vet. He is always willing to check things out via email because we are over an hour away. Plus, I really didn't want to stress these guys out with another few hours in a trailer.We are going to trim up the dead skin this evening and then apply more medicine. We are supposed to leave it open but medicated and watch for any signs of infection. Both of these kids got a tetanus shot when they got here so if we can hold off infection we ought to be in good shape. We all wish that the wounds would have been in a place that wasn't impossible to wrap but, although they will have a gnarly scar, they should heal up just fine.
This week is the Pretty Prairie Rodeo (KANSAS LARGEST NIGHT RODEO!!!!) and we will be riding in the Grand Entry Parade every night. I will try to take some pictures but it is nearly impossible to get anything decent when Luna is just waiting for me to let my guard down so she can try to kill me. Jk, she knows I love her.
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