Tennessee Extreme Mustang Makeover.....as spectators!

I got a flu bug last week and missed a day of work - that does not happen very often, and I was feeling so bad on Wednesday that I was worried about not being able to go to the EMM.  I was better by Thursday morning, but still out of it.  We both worked 1/2 a day, then hit the road hoping I would be alright.  

This time around we are going as spectators...and I am glad we did.  I will admit that I missed being involved with a horse, but I also would have missed seeing every single mustang/trainer team do their stuff.  Since I was not feeling good we pretty much stayed in our seats.  We walked around to look at the vendors a couple of times, and went out to the barn and practice arena on Friday night.  Other than that...I was in my seat watching everyone.

These pictures are going to be out of order.  I wish I would have gotten more but my camera really stinks when it comes to indoor pictures.  One day I will do an entry on the camera and why I don't recommend them if you expect a camera to do its job.

Anyways, back on topic.....Dale Lively and his mustang El Cuatro waiting for their Top 10 scores.  Dale is still a crowd favorite and got 3rd place.  He did very well, but I can't argue with the 1st and 2nd placings.

Here is one of my favorites.  David and Stardust.  Check out the look on Stardusts face...he was so cute!  He was watching the judges flip their score cards around...
I am happy to say that Abby, who was a yearling trainer last year and again this year in NE adopted Stardust!  I feel like he is in the family.  :-)

Greg Reynolds has done several EMM's, and he and his horse Justin are on the left, and Terry and Mr. Big are on the right.  Both were doing a lot of PR and posing for photos.
Mr. Big was one of my favorites.  He is so small and cute, and his eyes are so soft.  Terry's wife said they were taking him home.  She is a shorty herself and fell in love with his size and his big heart when they picked him up.  Story with this guy...the BLM guys offered them another horse because Mr. Big was so broncy.  Terry's wife looked at his eye and fell in love...nope, he was going home with them.  Look at him now.  :-)

Greg riding Justin around.  Justin is another shorter horse so his whole name is Just My Size.

Some stall decorations...

More stall decorations...

Darlene's daughter Ashley has competed in 3 EMM's now, and this year Darlene joined in the fun.  This banner was in the horses stall on the back wall...

It took a bit, but I got Jody Call to cooperate so I could get his picture with the banner.

Here is one of the yearlings posters....the young gal took Stargazer to an elementary school.  If you can't read the little blurb in the center, I will tell you the funny part.  It is from Stargazers point of view and he was telling about one little kid who asked Jessyca how you tell the difference between a girl mustang and a boy mustang.  Jessyca finally said "You just do" and moved on.  HA HA!  Isn't that great? 

 Here is another team favorite.  Joe and Ranchero.  Check out the cute look on Ranchero's face.  He is young and curious, and whenever another horse or human would walk by he just had to sniff it out.  Notice no bridle...they rode all over like that.  Joe would touch Ranchero's neck or grab a small piece of the mane and wiggle it to get his nose back where it belonged.  They won the Idols division and it was well deserved.  Joe came in with a bridle on and Ranchero did not handle near as well with a bit in his mouth as he did without it even tho Joe barely touched the reins.  One of the gals sitting by us mentioned that too.  I hope his adopters try him out with a bitless bridle - he is the perfect candidate for it.

Some of last years yearling competitors came back this year for a 2 yr old lunging competition.

Max is one of the mustangs, and he has his own quilt.  You really need to click on the picture to make it bigger so you can see the Many Moods of Max.  This is awesome!

 This is awesome!  Here are your 1st and 2nd place riders in the Legends division.  They are engaged to be married!!!  They held hands and kissed.  I missed the picture of the first kiss, but it will be imprinted in my mind forever.  It was so romantic....
Madeline got 1st place and Robert got 2nd place.

 

 Madeline going over the bridge.

 Head shot of Mr. Big.

Here are some of your Top 10 Legends doing the shuffle ....

One of the obstacles for the Top 10 finals.

We went outside Friday evening to walk the barns and watch the riders practice.  The sun was setting and I got some neat pictures...this is one of them.  

 One of our local girls was in the yearling competition - Star is in the pink hat.  Again she was so close to Top 10!  This is her 3rd year and we are so proud of her!

Star's stall sign.

Star's poster for her mustang, Beauty.

This just tickled my funny bone!  This is a before and after photo....

Now this is a teeter totter!!!

Here are the final 3 for the Legends finals....Madeline, Robert and Dale.

Yearling Top 10......

Abby getting ready to show her 2 yr old, Ford.  Ford is the one she showed here last year as a yearling.

I wish this photo was more clear - but you get the idea.  This is part of the course for the 1st place yearling finals.  If the jumps look close together, it is because they are!  This girl was running full blast all over and her little mustang was so in tune with her...it as beautiful, high energy and just plain awesome!  She ran her horse over the jumps then thru the fire hoop, then she followed him thru.  She also had a line of about 5 barrels on the other wall that were close together and they blasted thru those too with only 1 step between each.  I can't wait to find them on You Tube!  Their win was well deserved.

I like to take pictures of the obstacles for ideas.  This is the bridge they used for the Legends division and it really was not very wide.  Some horses liked it just fine, and others made the decision to save their rider the hassle of going over it.  Ha ha!  Others just fell off and acted like it was not a big deal.  I think I would have been a little freaked out to fall off the bridge...but they all just worked thru it.

We had such a great time and I am so glad we went!  Sherry and Jeffrey were a couple we talked to last year and she found me and asked about us and about Copper.  It felt so good to be able to tell her about Copper and how wonderful he is.  I do wish I felt better because I know I was not as peppy as I usually am, but then again I would have been bouncing all over the place and would have missed some of the riders.  The only thing we missed was the Showmanship for the youth trainers - not my thing so we went outside to walk the barn and watch the riders in the practice ring.

Now, there is always someone who does things that makes others feel uncomfortable, or just downright ticked off.  We head out there and I get a few pictures of Greg riding his horse outside of the arena, and at the far end is a guy, Cowboy #13, on a black horse and there is excessive slapping with the reins, spurring and yanking going on.  It was not the correctional kind of stuff (which would have still been excessive in my book)....this is something that went on and on.  Holy smokes, the horse did not have time to think about what he was supposed to be doing.  About that time I thought I would record it.  I did miss the nice big rear the horse gave him but I got some of the other stuff.  There was a lady at the other end of the arena taping too, and I saw her looking at me.  I thought she might be with that guy but I did not care - I kept doing my thing.  Come to find out, she was not with him...she was taping him too hoping he would stop his actions with the horse.  She had been out there longer so saw a lot more than I did.  The video I have shows him glancing at her and also at me.  He finally left the ring, and the whole way to the barn he was jabbing the horse with his spurs.  He did not ride the horse course, or show up to walk his horse thru it.  Don't know what happened....I hope someone nice adopted his horse because the horse was not being mean spirited, he just didn't get it.  His eyes said so.  Yes, the eyes have it!  :-)  When the horse did have a chance to move without having his jaw yanked on, he moved nicely from what we could tell.  It is just sad that some people think they have to do this to any animal.

Ya always meet the neatest people at these events.  I met a gal who was there to adopt!  Yay!  The gate is closed at our place, but it was open at hers!  She heard Brian  and I talking and saw me taking notes so she asked our opinion on some of the ones she picked.  It was so much fun going over our notes about what we liked and did not like, and I learned a lot from her.  She is a teacher so has the summers off, and one summer she spent as much time as she could riding around with a lameness vet, so she had a lot of information that she was more than willing to share.  Oh how I would love to do that!  She also rode around Lake Tahoe!  She took off with her dog and her horse and was gone for 5 weeks.  It took her about 2 1/2 weeks to ride around the lake.  How awesome is that?!  We really liked her.  She is every trainers dream in an adopter....she asked a lot of questions and gave opinions on what she thought, and she kept awesome notes.  She knew exactly what she was looking for in a horse, and it had nothing to do with color.  Today I heard who she adopted, and out of the 5 on her list, he was my #1 choice.  She said the trainer was so glad it was her who won the bid because she was at the barn talking to him, and the trainer had not talked to the other person about his horse.  I totally know how he feels...that is why Sonic Boom is home.  :-)

Next year the EMM will again be in Murfreesboro, TN, and another one is in Arizone - right by New Mexico.  Will see what that brings....

Until later...Karen and Tripp who took a 'trip' down memory lane of 2008....



 

Missed a 1st place ribbon.....cuz of road apples!

To all you people out there that have had discussions on different groups about a horse that stops to poop in the show arena - I GET IT NOW!!!! HA HA HA!!!!  The Midwest Mustang and Burro Saddle Club had their horse show last weekend, and Tripp and I were in the Walk/Trot class.  The judge gave suggestions and tips to everyone at the end of the class, which was quite interesting seeing as none of us show Western Pleasure.  Well, I was told Tripp and I would have got 1st place - BUT he stopped to poop.  He doesn't walk and poop at the same time and I don't make him.  Apparently in the real show ring for Western Pleasure this DQ's you real quick.  Hee hee!!!  And we were even at the far corner of the arena out of everyones way.  :-)  Will I work on trying to MAKE him walk and poop?  Nope!  It is not worth it to me to smack, kick, spur, yell, whatever to 'teach' him to walk and poop.  It was enough for me to know where we were in the line up, which tells me that we have improved a lot.  I am more than happy with that and we are moving in the right direction.  And to those people who say "Out in the wild if he was being chased by a mountain lion he would not stop to poop!" I say, we are not in the wild being chased by a mountain lion, but if he was, he would have probably already pooped from fright, or he would be so scared and puckered up that pooping would be the last thing on his mind.  We have got some good laughs out of this one.  :-)

I think someone said there were 18 mustangs at our show this year, and a couple of domestics that one of the members brought for her kids so they had something to do all day.  They had a ball too!  One of my biggest highlights was getting to see people and their mustangs that I have not seen for a long time.

Seeing as there are so many pictures on this entry I am going to let them stay out of order....there will be a couple of miscellaneous pictures from the night or two before the show.

This is the gelding halter class.  Brian showed Tripp in the halter class.  I only keep track of that stuff when I am told I missed out on something because we stopped to poop.  Otherwise I would not remember.  :-)

    

I was working with Boom one night while Brian was trying to convince Tripp he wanted to be caught.  The sunset was so pretty that night...

 We were working with Boom and Tripp on trailer loading together.  We finally did get them in together but Boom would turn his butt and start kicking at Tripp, and we don't have a divider to keep them apart.  We played on the side of caution and Boom stayed home from the show.  When Brian would go out to get Tripp, Tripp took off running.  Oh my gosh, he was awesome!  Tail and head in the air, a trot the size of Texas...dang he looked good!  To me.....to Brian he did not look so great.  Hee hee!

Tripp ran down the hill on the other side of the small mossy pond and peeked thru the trees......

Then he moved a little further out so he could look for Brian.....don't think for a second that I was not laughing at his antics!

Ah ha!  Tripp caught Brian!  :-)  And Wendigo, Epona and Nevada watch with interest...and also glad it was not them.  

This was after the last class of the day...it was barrels and we trotted them.  Tripp had enough by then and on the 'home stretch' he stopped!  I finally got him going again and we made it thru the cones.  I got off and laughed....a lot!

April and Nevada and Tripp and I are getting ready for the Ride-A-Buck....

OH!  Brian and Tripp were in the costume class.  Yep, you guessed it!  Brian was the bee keeper and Tripp was the bee.  I am the bee supporter with my own antenna's.  :-)
Brian and Tripp in the costume class was one of my other highlights...it was awesome!
 

Close up of Brian and Tripp watching stuff going on...

Brian and Tripp with his antennas on, and Casey the helper.  Last year Casey made friends with Copper.  This year she made friends with Tripp.  She is such a sweet girl!

Brian and Tripp in the halter class...all there is to do is stand around so he was making the best of his free time.

More waiting in the halter class...

Brian taking care of Tripp between classes...

Tripp with his antennas on, and Brian with his bee tow-tie...

This was so cute....Beth, one of the members of the club also dressed up for the costume class.  She named herself Trixie, and she had a stick horse named Buck Fifty.  Casey adopted Buck Fifty and Brian was helping to hold Buck Fifty while Casey helped to hold Tripp...

Brian and Jay watching the show...

Brian and Brenda were chatting during the halter class and loving on their horses while others were trying to square their horses up.  Brian and Brenda were definately much more relaxed!  :-)

Casey and Buck Fifty with Brian and Tripp...

Casey loving on Tripp...

This is Cloud - he is one of the mustangs from the Hutchinson, KS Correctional Facility, and he was falling asleep while one of the girls was petting on him.  Nobody bid on him the first day at the Correctional Facility Open House and I did not understand it, other than the fact that everyone has their favorite 'flavor' of things...even in the horse world.  He was so smooth and such a sweetheart.  A couple in our club said that Cloud was a Curly, and they have a soft spot for them.  They ended up adopting him later!!!  The whole club was so happy he went to such a great home.

AH HA!  Here we go...my other highlight is Brian and Tripp in the costume class....check out Tripp's stinger!

 When Tripp walked his middle stripe would scoot back to the flank.  How do you like his leg warmers?  The judge asked each participant to show her their best move.  Brian said theirs was "Flight of the Bumble Bee" then he started to lunge him around.  The breeze picked up perfect, Tripp moved off so light, and his wings started to 'fly'....it was awesome!  Yes, they got 1st place.  This was Brian's first show every...he was very tickled.  And me, yes, I was too. 

One of the club members made chili so there were bowls of chili, chips and chili, chili dogs and I think chips and a couple other sides.  Brian had some chili and thought it was good.  

Here is Mack, another one of the Hutchinson, KS Correctional Facility mustangs.  He was another one that was not adopted that day until later.  Look at him now!

Glenn and Cloud...these two worked so well together...like watching a dance.

Jay and his wife Brenda.  Jay is the one who has Levi, the mustang that he was given for the EMM who has cataracts.  I am happy to announce that Levi has an appointment on November 16th to have them removed!  Yay!!!!

Jay and Levi....

Jay and Levi backing thru the cones...I think there were 4 or 5 cones to zig zag thru...

Jay and Levi getting ready for the egg race...
Jay and Brenda have never shown either, so they are kind alike us...try to follow the rules the best we all can...

Jay walking Levi thru an obstacle during the riding trail class...

Peek-A-Boo!

My friend Patti brought her horse Soxs, and this is her husband who rides a Harley.  I was razzing him about him wanting to ride a horse.  Hee hee!  Actually he does ride every once in a while - but he rides his Harley more.  :-)

It is easy to 'teach' Tripp to bow when he is eating grass...

It was too windy for the pieces of pipe to stay upright in the cones for the pole bending...so we just went around the cones...

Us doing the egg race...we were good until we started to trot.  I am just glad that the egg did not break where it first landed!

Tripp....I sure do love this guy!

I am smiling my egg into submission!  Ha ha!

I was practicing my bareback riding for the Ride-A-Buck...it has been a while and I still have a few nerves to deal with...

Before the show started I worked with Tripp in the round pen...it was more for me than him...

On our way out of the arena after the Walk/Trot class...
Here are some things I heard the judge telling people....don't post a trot, even tho a bit is a snaffle if it is had any kind of shank (this one had very short shanks) you ride one handed (even tho the rider was riding as smooth as silk with 2 hands), you DO NOT STOP TO LET YOUR HORSE POOP (snicker snicker - guess who that was!?), and something I heard later was something about you should have split reins in Showmanship, and don't wear a casual shirt in Showmanship. 

I liked this picture because of the Cowboy Shadow....I like to think of him as my guardian angel...

 Here is Levi, the blind mustang. 

Mack and his girl...

Another picture of Mack from the Correctional Facility.  The Open House was in June.  What a doll!

Here is Patti and Soxs.  His legs are awesome!  His socks have black spots in them.  Patti adopted him from the Hutchinson, KS Correctional Facility a while back....he is so big compared to Tripp, and he and Patti are amazing together!

Casey loving on Tripp...

Tripp needs a snack....I had his antennas zip tied to his halter so he wore them the rest of the day, and on the way home.  :-)  He is such a good sport!

Tripp loving on Brian...I love this picture....

There was a Liberty class.  You let your horses loose and have one minute to run them around, and one minute to halter them.  Well, the haltering rule ended up changing in the middle so I am thinking that maybe they just should not have that rule. We made it on time, and it was quite smooth if I say so myself, but other horses that were AWESOME to watch did not get haltered on time, so ditch the haltering rule.  It is about the animation and pretty, wild and free factor.  When I used to work at a vet supply we would set up a booth at horse shows, and my favorite shows were the Arabian shows and the Liberty class (and traditional costume class).  I was very excited about this....I hope they do it again!  They are taking suggestions and I will add my 2 cents worth on this.  It was so neat to watch them run, and some were just full of it and GORGEOUS!!!  Tripp used up all his animated running the two nights he ran from Brian. Hee hee! He just was not interested in showing off his stuff....BUT Tina got this shot of all 4 feet off the ground which is a great picture.  It is a small picture because I took it off our club site.

 Here is the bee getting his middle band adjusted...

There you have it....the fun from last weekend.  We had fun visiting and love on everyone's horses, and the kids that were there had fun helping hand out ribbons and riding their horse/pony. 

That is all for now...have things to do.

Have a wonderful day everyone, and hug the ones you love, whether they are animals or humans.  And if you can't hug them because they are not close by, call or e-mail them.  You won't regret it...

Until later, Karen and Tripp who is quite proud of himself for bringing home ribbons.  :-)