Lake County Fair Stock Horse Show

~There comes a time when you're gonna

get bucked, and you're gonna need to know

what to do so you don't get stepped on.~

~Betsy Swain, 1875~

Colt, Cindy Sue, and I loaded up Thursday mornin' headin' for Lakeview, Oregon. Every year they have a really great horse show lineup...from pleasure, to cutting, to branding, to working cow horse, to penning...it's a pretty big deal for that sleepy lil' town.

On Thursday they have a cutting show, and it really draws a lot of cutters from California and Oregon. As soon as the cutting show is done, the herd work for the Working Cow Horse Show starts. I didn't enter the cutting show this year, we just did the Cow Horse show.

The cows are usually solid black Angus and FAST! The herd that I got this time was a really nice bunch though, and I was second up in the draw, so the cows were still soft. In fact, the two cows I worked were almost too soft. We could have had one with a lil' bit more aggressiveness, and we would could have showed a lil' bit better and had a better score. But, we showed well and scored a 66.

The next morning all the horses in the "aged" classes get mouthed by the vet (to make sure they're the correct age for the class they're entered in). I warmed Colt up in the arena for a few minutes, got him mouthed and took him back to the trailer to finish his breakfast. We wouldn't be showing until 11:30 or so.

I got on him again around 11 AM and warmed him up. He seemed a bit tired, so I didn't want to over-do his warm up...just enough to get his muscles ready to work.

The reining pattern went very well (he didn't dink around with his lead changes like at the last show) and we scored a 67 1/2. Then I called for my cow for the fence work. I was super pleased with Colt's try...he's got such a big heart. We did the first turn on the long wall just right, but I didn't get Colt positioned correctly on the second turn, and we didn't get the cow turned until past the corner and lost 2 points.

But, look at how proud Colt is of himself after working that cow...he's just licking his lips and and sayin' "I did GOOD!!"





Loosing two points meant a lot...we came in second in the 4-6 Year Old Hackamore Class...1/2 point behind the winner...So Close to winnin' that buckle!!!

I feel pretty good about next week's Futurity though...but, we'll be showing in the two-rein instead of the hackamore. All in all it was a great show, we had fun, and I learned a bunch too.