March 4H and YPBRA

  I'm just going to start off by saying that Phoenix and I had an off day today.  Luckily we turned it around pretty well.  We didn't win any races or majorly improve from last time (technically we didn't "improve" at all), but we learned a lot today.  We started our day off bright and early at Rocking 45, loading the trailer up with Phoenix and the tack.  She hopped in after a minute and we headed off to the fairgrounds.  We got our number, tacked up, and went to go warm up.  Phoenix was a little frisky after walking around the arena, but after a few minor spooks we got it under control.  She reared once, but then was pretty calm, so I felt pretty good about our upcoming run.
  Of course we were first up, so I walked into the arena, trotted a circle, and asked Phoenix to lope to the first barrel.  We ended up with a few restarts, some bucking and rearing, and walking the pattern.  I ended up dismounting and walking Phoenix out because I was holding up the horse show and everyone was getting tired of me schooling Phoenix.

Bucking

Bucking/rearing

Barrels

  I was frustrated with Phoenix, but knowing that she isn't usually that bad, some of the adults and I checked all of Phoenix's tack from her boots to her tie down to her saddle and pad to make sure nothing was causing her pain.  We found nothing, so we re-tacked her up and quickly did a run through barrel pattern by ourselves before they cleaned up.  We walked and trotted the whole thing and then walked home.  Pretty confident that Phoenix had gotten all of her bucks out, we waited calmly for our run.  The pole run was more successful than our barrel run, though not exactly what I was looking for (we had a fantastic run last show).

  We untacked and borrowed a lunge line so I could work Phoenix a little bit.  I put on her halter and worked on lunging her in the warm up arena.  She reared, bucked, and hopped a lot at first, but eventually she slowed down and listened well off of the lunge line.  A horse women (one of the mothers) reminded me that with horses patience is key and I just had to stick with it and keep doing what I was doing.
  After a short discussion, my dad and I decided to take out the divider in the trailer and try competing at YPBRA, held at the Yuma Sheriff Posse.  At this time the same lady that had given me advice early came over with her husband and wanted to show us how to load Phoenix without getting into the trailer to take pressure off of her pole while loading.  I understood where she was coming from, but we were in a hurry and Phoenix had been doing great at calmly loading into the trailer.  They wrapped her lead rope around her neck and then pulled a lunge line behind her butt to coax her into the trailer (though she did perfectly fine hopping in this morning and I could've loaded her the same way again).  I was nervous that something would happen to Phoenix and it did.
  She leaned backwards so much that she tripped over the rope, got caught up in it, somehow got untangled, and got lose on the grounds.  She ran into the showmanship arena and caused the girl's donkey she was showing to get loose.  Phoenix chased the donkey around the fairgrounds and kept swerving around the people trying to catch her.  Eventually she was caught and, after the husband and wife apologized, I loaded Phoenix into the trailer my way and we headed out to YPBRA.
  We got there just in time to sign up and take Phoenix out of the trailer to warm up a little before our race.  She seemed a lot calmer at the Sheriff Posse, so I was feeling a lot better from our earlier disappointing race.  We got to run in the D barrel class this race due to starring last month.  Finally it was our turn and Phoenix entered calmly into the arena.  She felt good running towards the first barrel and I was feeling pretty good about our turn, but then she started running weird and bucked after the turn.  I kicked her forward and she took off galloping.  I pulled her back as quickly as I could and made a pretty terrible turn that went way out towards the first barrel again.  Our last turn wasn't too bad and we ran home, slowing Phoenix down before the end because she was pulling super hard and it took a lot to slow her down.  We received a 30 second time (our worst ever).  I'm not really sure why Phoenix was acting so weird, but we still had poles to do.

  We took the poles a little slow running towards them, but we did a pretty good turn (it was a lot wider than last time) and I was able to keep her slow enough to control this time.  I had to continually check her, but it was a lot better than our last YPBRA run (not our 4H run).  We made a badish/ok turn around turn and ran back through the pattern a little faster.  We did knock a pole over (right into my knee) but I lost control for a split second, so I guess it was my fault.  We ran home and got a time of 40, which wouldn't have been too bad (for us inconsistent amateurs) if we hadn't knocked a pole.

  Though we didn't run any of our best runs today, Phoenix and I learned a lot and didn't totally fail.
We improved throughout the day from the 4H show to YPBRA and we had fun and tried not to take it too hard.  No one runs perfectly every time and Phoenix and I are still working on being consistent.  Sometimes Fallon Taylor wins the NFR and other races she places 9th place, but she always has a good attitude and never blames Babyflo.  She is a great example and I want to be like Fallon.  I'm not going to let one bad race ruin our confidence or fun.  Hopefully we improve for fair on March 31st!!