Mr. Sometimes
For the first time in four years I am faced with the prospect of training a barrel horse. For those of you who are non-rodeo types, barrel racing is supposed to look like this:
Yeah, it is as much fun as it looks. Like the most awesome carnival ride you’ve ever been on, except there are no rails and the car has a will of its own.
A really good barrel horse has to have three things: speed, agility, and a rock solid mind (which is not the same thing as rock-headed). Of those, the third is the most important, and the hardest to find. You’re asking for both top speed and fingertip control on changing ground conditions, with hundreds of distractions like flags and banners, crowds and loud music, shouting rodeo announcers, other horses. It can take years to learn whether a horse really has the mettle to compete, and most barrel racers will go through a pasture-ful that almost made it only to short circuit when the pressure is cranked up.
In a host of infuriating, depressing ways it is very much like dating. You meet. You get to know each other. You go out for a few…dates. (Go ahead, make the cheap joke about riding and working up a lather. You know you want to.) Some horses you cross off the list immediately. Too clumsy. Too slow. Too flighty. Not interested. Some seem like a good fit at the beginning, but after a few weeks you realize it’s not going to work out. Those are disappointing, but you shrug it off as part of the process.
The real heart-breakers are the ones I call Mr. Sometimes. (Yeah, I know there are girl horses, too. Change it to Ms. if it suits you.) You suffer through a month of misery–blown turns, knocked down barrels, failure to finish–and just when you’ve had it, you’re ready to throw up your hands and walk away, he has a moment of perfection. The two of you are in sync, and it’s all so damn effortless and intoxicating and you think, “I’ve got it! Finally. If I move exactly like this, and wear that color, and say these things, he’ll love and cherish me forever.”
Oh, wait, we were talking about horses.
So you go on, milking enough encouragement from your fleeting success to endure more misery, days and weeks that are more bad than good, convinced there’s a magic formula, a secret key that will turn Mr. Sometimes into Mr. All the Time. Except one day you wake up and realize you’ve traded three years of your life for a dozen shining moments and there is no magic bullet, although there have been plenty of times it was probably good you didn’t own a gun.
Luckily, my barrel racing stint is temporary. I only have to get this mare in shape so a local girl can try her out. If it happens to be a good match, awesome. If not, the mare can go back to happily lounging around the pasture. And me? Heh. Anybody wanna rope some calves?
Kari Lynn Dell – Montana for Real
Jan 24, 2013 @ 05:39:51
Wow, what a perfect ride, on a gorgeous horse! Poetry, really.
I wish I had the years back I wasted on Mr. Sometimes’ (not sure how to make that plural.) Years, surely, and I don’t barrel race!
You’re living the life, Kari…I want to be you!
Without the snow.
Jan 24, 2013 @ 05:42:00
Horseys are moving heights. And they make the L-shape in chess.
Keri Stevens recently posted..Mistletoe Madness Blog Hop: Win a Kindle Fire and more!
Jan 24, 2013 @ 05:48:18
I am in awe of you! I had a very good barrel horse when I was a teenager. A beautiful, ornery, leopard appaloosa. God, I loved that horse! But, I was the one who needed barrel training! I was always frightened of the turn, I just couldn’t lean into it. Granted, I was the only one I knew who got a ticket on their ornery horse –he loved getting the bit between his teeth! One day he walked into the City reservoir for a drink! The water department called the police, the rest was history! Poor guy, all he really needed was a good rider, not a swoony, daydreaming, hippy-chick teenager! I completely understood why he was always looking for the low branch on trails! Thanks for the story and the video and the memories
Good luck with training!
Cristine Gasser recently posted..First Impressions…. first lines…
Jan 24, 2013 @ 08:20:30
so much fun! I had a mustang-quarter horse for a few years who was my favorite guy ever. he loved to learn, but I don’t know that he could have kept the rock solid mind. he liked to prance around in public and knicker at himself in storefront windows.
Keri Ford recently posted..Your 30 Dress and Shoes
Jan 24, 2013 @ 09:31:37
I’ve only been on a horse twice, but I loved this post. Annoying how many Mr. Sometimes’s there are in the world. But I suppose one girl’s Mr. Sometimes is another girl’s Mr. All the Time.
Hope the mare works out!
Gwen Hernandez recently posted..Lessons from my son
Jan 24, 2013 @ 12:32:59
Great post, Kari, and great comments! Keri, you made me LOL, after I puzzled out what the heck you were saying. LOL
I have no rodeo experience, but I was on my equestrian team in college. I just showed Advanced Beginner in English but one year I got to ride a retired Michigan State Police horse (named Teacher’s Pet, which was pretty apropos, too). He was HUGE, and perfect, and we had that magic ride and took first place. I never got to have an experience that good again, though some came close.
(Funny how that still fits the dating analogy! LOL)
NJDamschroder recently posted..Get My Signature on Your E-Books
Jan 24, 2013 @ 13:42:10
Cristina: Oh, Lord. That sounds like something my old kid horse would’ve done to me if we’d been anywhere near a city.
And thanks everybody else for chiming in. It always surprises me how many people have some kind of horse experience, good and bad. Horses dogs and children–the never-ending fountain of story inspiration.
Kari Lynn Dell recently posted..Revelation
Jan 24, 2013 @ 15:16:38
Great post, Kari! This is one of my favorite events to watch at the rodeo.
Poetry in motion for sure! I’ve always loved horses and dreamed of owning one of my own. But it just wasn’t in the cards. LOL
Melissa Ohnoutka recently posted..The Journey Never Ends
Jan 26, 2013 @ 11:57:28
You can’t get a better example than Sheri Cervi on any horse. I’ve had my share of Mr. Sometimes, but I was also lucky to have two great barrel horses, Ruff and Olive. My now barrel horse is a Ms. Sometimes so she’ll become a heel horse. Great post.