Lessons Learned

Remember Madison County rodeo a few weeks ago? We learned to always allow an extra couple of hours when doing thing that involve horses. Good thing I took that lesson into consideration when heading to Vinita on Friday!

Our goal was to head to pick up Jessica (my friend and 2013 Miss Rodeo Old Fort Days) at 3:00pm. I woke up knowing that my horse trailer had a board loose and my boyfriend was planning to fix it while I was at class. I pull in at 2:45 to Nathan completely frustrated because after 3 drill bits down and a couple hours of trying… the board was NOT getting fixed that day. I got Max ready and loaded him in the second half of the trailer. Needless to say it was a quiet drive to Jessica’s because we were both irritated. Him - from messing with the trailer. I – from running late… again. One of my biggest pet peeves is not being on time.

Thankfully Jessica had a trailer we could borrow. Our plan B was to hitch up to her trailer with Nathan’s truck… of course, the ball on his truck was wrong the size. On top of that, we discovered that I did not unhook the trailer lights from underneath the gooseneck and when we turned it tore every fiber from my trailer light hookup. Great. Now with one lightless trailer and the wrong hitch… we had a pretty a good idea where things were headed.

Jessica’s dad was kind enough to let us borrow his truck! After getting hitched and moving things from one truck to another we hit the road around 4:30. Twenty minutes into the drive the tack room door flew open (even though it was locked!), so we stopped and closed it. Thirty minutes later it was open again! It happened seven times! Thankfully, we had our fix it man, Nathan, and he tied a ratchet strap to a horse tie on the trailer and latched down the door.

So the truck thermostat may have been a bit off...
but it felt like 134 degrees!

We arrived at 6:15. Warmed up the horses, our poor boys were drenched with sweat in no time. We changed in the truck with A/C. We had the privilege of meeting several other queens, including the reining junior and Miss Will Rogers Memorial Rodeo, Junior Miss Rodeo Oklahoma and Miss 101 Rodeo. During the queens runs, the current queens had to do a run and a half then continue to a second gate so that they can push cows later… Jessica and I were under the impression we

were to do the same thing.  As I approached the gate that they exited, people started pointed and yelling “no keep going!” So we got to do double queens runs! All we could do was laugh because we were the only ones out in the arena as we finished our runs and the announcer played “How bout them Cowgirls” over the system. Maximus’ first queens run was a success. He was very controlled, now we just have to work on speed! After cooling off our horses, we signed all of our autograph sheets plus a few hats and boots in about 30 minutes because the kids were so ecstatic that we were there.

My favorite thing is meeting eyes with a child who really wants to talk with you but is too shy. I love when they decide to open up and before too long, it's hard to find a stopping point in the conversation because the kid is so excited about rodeo. I hope to help make kids' first rodeo experience a memory; because often times that memory can turn into tradition. And tradition is what rodeo is all about.