Chance to Shine Charity Horse Show...

Saturday, April 17th, was the First Annual Chance to Shine Charity Horse Show hosted by the Mounted Mustang 4H Club.  They all worked very hard to advertise, they were on t.v., they talked to the radio personalities around the area, and they all showed up to have a good time and did something that benefited Chance Cole, the 5 yr old boy who has brain cancer.  Let me tell you what, he is ALL boy, and you would never know he was fighting this horrible disease.  This little boy is cute as he can be, and he got to ride a pony named Sparky, and he got to meet Tripp.  Here is Chance....

Tripp loves kids, and Chance was no different.  Chance made a comment about Tripp liking his jersey because it is yellow like a duck, and I told him that Tripp loves ducks!  :-)

Tripp just got thru flipping Chances hat.  Hee hee!

Anybody who has followed the blog or knows me knows that I am not a show girl.  I was laughing because you can tell the people that show a lot.  They are serious, they are all dazzled up and almost perfect looking.  Here is a self portrait of Tripp and I....guess where we are???  We are in line for the halter class, waiting on the judge.   :-)  I am having fun!  This is the first halter class I have ever been in and can you believe that Tripp just would not trot away from the judge?  Argh!  She told me that if he would have trotted, we would have been in the ribbons.  Oh well...we still had fun!

Hee hee.....here is our judge for the Western Pleasure class. (What else is there to do while you are sitting out there waiting?) 

And here is the person on my left.....

And here are the people on my right....(adult class was small)...the white horse is a mustang...

The club collected some awesome items for the raffle!  I did not win anything, and neither did Tripp...he was disappointed because he liked that pink grooming set and the fruit basket!

During lunch break Tripp watched the folks taking a break....

Tripp meets his 'brother', Nitro....Nitro is not a mustang, but he should be!  :-)

You all remember Wyoming, one of the TIP horses from last year?  His first adopter is in the jacket in the background, and her daughter and grand daughters plus a young guy came to see the show.  They are going to look for this kind of stuff around their town, which is a couple hours away.  They all loved Tripp!
 

TJ, the young guy who came with them wanted to ride Tripp....why not?  This was his third horse to ride, and his first mustang!  Yee haw!  He and Tripp both got along just fine.
TJ was a servant.....

And TJ was a friend....

In between classes Tripp thought he was starving, so he dug thru the gravel for some dandelions.  :-)

Brian showed up later and he took Tripp for a walk on the hill....

Around the corner from where Brian is standing a bunch of people showed up with these huge rubber balls.  You get in them and they roll you down the hill.  I did not do it - was busy, but it sure looked fun!

And this is how they brought it back up....

When Brian got to the show he let Tripp wear his camo BLM hat...

Yeah...I clean up pretty good.  :-)  Tripp doesn't look half bad himself. 

After the show we found a big chunk of ice from the food hut....Tripp loves ice!

Brians daughter Madison wanted to ride Tripp and take him walking...so we did that before we loaded up to head home.  Madison is afraid of the horses so it was a big deal for her to ask.  Tripp followed me around the arena first, then I instructed Madison to turn him in a circle each direction by herself and she did great. 

Then she took him for a walk around the arena to cool him off....he worked so hard you know!  It was mounted shooting practice the night before (we did not shoot - just hung out and helped replace balloons) then the show the next day.  That is two days in a row! 

Then it was time to head home....

I did get 3 ribbons for the day.  :-)

It was a long day but a very fun one.  I was so glad I went, and Tripp did fantastic the whole day and he was the belle of the ball as far as he is concerned. 

We all wish the best for Chance and he is in our thoughts and prayers constantly.  Hugs to you Chance! 

Until later...Karen and Tripp who loves Chances yellow duck jersey!  :-)

Family Visit on Sunday Afternoon....

Hello!  This is my Aunt Marianne from Minnesota.  She and my Uncle Gordie came to visit the critters...they had to visit with me by default.  Ha ha!
Look!  Batman has another fan!

Aunt M wanted to be sure to visit all the animals, and I think she got to meet almost everyone.  A few of the horses were down the hillside, but the ones who are attention starved kept her busy.
She just met Stormy....

Tripp thought it was a trick!  He had to work Friday night AND Saturday all day.  I told him he would have Sunday off since he was not used to it.  He just knew I was going to go back on my word.  He was wrong....I let him know being social was not work (okay, sometimes it is) and we were not going to make him do anything that required him to wear that big heavy saddle.  Aunt M has been following the story of Tripp since I brought him home, so she felt like she was meeting someone famous. 

Joker loves to go into the small shallow pond to eat the green stuff.

My Mom and her hubby Mike came up to visit too (darn it!  did not get pix of him and the llama!), and Mom and Aunt M introduced themselves to Paco and Thunder.  Look out boys!  You have two crazy ladies who loved horses as kids and used to go ride who they could any way they could....and they think about it now and say WOW!  It is amazing we didn't kill ourselves!  Ha ha!  Has not changed much for many of us, eh?


Paco, you are under my spell and I am going to lead you....

HUH?  SHE IS GOING TO WHAT?  AND WHAT IS A SPELL?

I had to laugh at this photo.  My Mom is in the red and Aunt M is in the light blue, and it looks like they are towing the horses along.  It really was not that bad - I just happened to get the shot that makes it look like this.  Paco and Thunder both were very good and followed along with a few speed bumps along the way.

Thunder, you are under my spell too...

Mom really fell in love with Thunder...and Aunt M is taking pictures of everything...

Mom leading Thunder around.  Thunder leads good most of the time so they just went on their merry way...

Can I see your teeth???

SMOOCH!  Right on the nose!

Uncle Gordie got a kick out of all the horses too, not to mention the other critters.   This isn't golf, but it is a nice diversion.  :-)

It was such a fun afternoon!  I sure wish we had more time to hang out and visit.  Aunt M was amazed that she was actually petting and hanging out with mustangs....she kept asking my Mom "Did ever in your life you think you would be able to pet a mustang from the wild?"  It was very neat!

Thanks for visiting us!  :-)

Until later....Karen and Tripp who thought he was going to have to work again...hee hee!

Paco and Thunder here....check us out wearing a pad and little saddle!

Hello everyone!  Let us introduce ourselves....Thunder is on the left and Paco is on the right.  Does the background look a little different?  That is because we have been moved to the real mustang area set up inside the donk/llama/mini/Arab pen.  This is the area where all new mustangs usually go, but we had to stay in the front yard because of the mud - the truck, trailer and tractor could not make it back here.  Look how flat and dry the ground is!  (There is a big mud pile beside the pen where a little tractor looking thingy - they call it a bobcat but we don't know why...doesn't look like any bobcat we have seen....but it shoved all the mud in piles to help make the ground flatter.

We have been learning a few things, and they all start out scary, or just plain annoying but we get used to it.  None of them have hurt us....yet!  Sometimes it is hard to know at first that everything is fine, but the girl is patient with us and we finally get there.  She shows her teeth a lot - they call it a smile - when we do something good.  We just lick our lips and chew on imaginary extra stuff left in our mouth when we think we got it...and are thinking about it a second.

Check us out wearing a navajo pad...we look pretty schnazzy, don't we?

We will admit, at first it did not look very friendly at all, but when she started rubbing us with it....oooohhhh la la.....it felt so good!

OH! Let me tell this part!  Hello!  This is Paco speaking....and I am letting you all know I am a mans man!  Don't like pink, don't need pink, but look what the girl made me wear!  (Notice how I look away...she deserves this for making me wear the thing with pink on it!)

And then to top it off.....she said something about "Oh, let's accessorize....."  (insert sarcastic little 'Whatever' here...) then she added the pink ball to the picture!  You all might think that I look like I am okay with it.  Just so you all know, I was still in shock and thinking "REALLY?????"

 Okay okay, my turn!  This is Thunder, and seeing as I am an Indian pony, I thought I looked pretty slick in the navajo pad!  And I am tough enough to wear pink, so we sported the thing with pink on it over my navajo pad (notice I said MY pad...I staked claims on it for now).

I will admit...the pink really doesn't go with the red, so we put it on the muddy little pad that used to be all blue.  I think it has a better look with the saddle, what do you think?

The girl said something about getting another saddle out...we have not seen it yet but it is supposed to have more stuff that will flap around.  I WILL BE BRAVE!  :-)

Hello, the girl is back, and we did not cinch anything up, just put it on them and walked them around. 
Paco and Thunder have moved to the new mustang area, so now the whole group is close together. 

Here are the boys and the llama eating.  The llama thinks the horses get preferential treatment since they get the timothy hay.  I tried to tell him it is because that is what was in line.  I love them all equally!  :-)

Yesterday Brian and I took off work to get some stuff done around the house.  After completing one task we sat on buckets and looked at our work.  These dandelions were sitting there with a sliver of sun on them...they were so pretty.

When Brian was moving more dirt around, I tried my English Wintec on Tripp and rode a little bit.  It is too wide - just doesn't fit.  I did realize I missed the small lightweight saddle so will be on a hunt for one that fits him.  I was hoping to ride the English class at the Charity Horse Show on Saturday.  Oh well....it is all good.

Silhouette shot of Tripps head.  Brian was double checking my trim job on his hooves when I caught this...the sky was so pretty last night.

 

 
We had a great day yesterday, but it is weird taking a day off during the week.  We got almost everything done that was on the list - gotta love lists to stay focused! 

I have to head out to feed now....have a great day everyone!  HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

Until later....Karen and Tripp who gets to go to mounted shooting practice tonite!  (We signed up for a beginners class in May so are going to introduce Tripp to the shooting part)