DESTINATION DENVER Have been feeling like the last couple of posts were really in a negative tone and I’m very happy to report that this post is going to be incredibly different. Here is a little background on my older daughter in case you were ever wondering what makes her tick, but because she is so ferocious, you were afraid to ask. (Incidentally, she is 5’3 and about 105 lbs. with boots, spurs, pants, ROAR shirt and cowboy hat on – who is afraid of that? Tinkerbell?) After having my first child, a beautiful, bald, blue eyed baby girl in August of 1990 I got back on the old barrel horse about two weeks post-delivery. Wasn’t so much that I was itching to go somewhere or that I had this incredible horse it’s just that if you live in Western Colorado you know how outstanding the fall can be to just go ride (well, until you have to paint everything orange and wear ear plugs). You just don’t miss the opportunity to ride horseback in the fall, in Colorado, if you can help it. Of course the little angel got introduced to our horses not too long after she came home from the hospital and probably was placed aboard around the same time. Honestly, I don’t remember the very first time our barrel racing Princess was placed aboard a horse. We didn’t mark the occasion with a picture or anything. I think it probably just happened and it wasn’t any big deal, it was just part of the natural order of things. The big forewarning of things to come happened before her Highness was a year old. The spring of 1991, is when the warning bells and whistles were going off like crazy, warning us of our future, we just plain weren’t listening. So that spring way back in 1991 The Princess (capital P) would go down for her nap and I would put her in a car seat and set the seat in the front of the pickup in the shade with the windows down so I could ride and she could sleep but if she awoke I’d be able to hear her. Yes, this was prior to baby monitors, baby videos, baby webcasts. This was the olden days and you figured things out if you wanted to get them done. She would wake up at some point during my ride and when I went to check on her she would beg to ride with me, chubby hands clasping and unclasping at the air around the horse. So I’d put her in front of me in the saddle and we’d go for a walk. Wasn’t too long before the casual walk with mom turned into a pretty hazardous activity for the baby incubator. The Princess would start kicking the saddle and my legs and bucking back against me repeatedly in an effort to go faster, doing serious injury to my ribcage and sternum the older she got. Then, of course, trotting wasn’t fast enough; it was lope or endure the wrath of a two year old. They are not called the “terrible twos” for nothing. Just want to clarify that the husband and I didn’t encourage the horse fixation. I know that some people like to make statements about how competitive parents in any sport have a tendency to push their kids to the brink of insanity wanting them to be competitive. The naysayers preach that parents want to live vicariously through the lives of their children and that they will go to any lengths to force their offspring to excel at activities the children have no aptitude or desire for. That is not the case here; I just want to reiterate that. When I was blessed with a baby it was a little bit of an adjustment to be indoors so much. By the time spring rolled around I was thrilled to be outside and overjoyed to be riding my horse. I really would have been ok with the baby staying with daddy while I rode my horse for a little while. The problem with that was that her royal majesty had other ideas. As she got older she would cry and scream and basically alert the neighbors in Rio Blanco and Mesa counties that mom was riding her horse and she was not being allowed to do it too. The cruelest form of child abuse. We’d fumble through the days of my trying to ride before she woke up from her nap. And she’d fumble through me trying to keep her sated on horseback riding. One day as I was cooking dinner my toddler started systematically removing soup cans from the kitchen cupboard. I saw her pack a can into the dining room so I followed her in there, picked up the can and put it back in the cupboard. Back to cooking dinner and then I watched as one by one each red and white can was again carried into the dining room by a very tiny and still pretty wobbly little girl. Took me a long time to figure out what she was doing. She had carried three cans into the dining room and had set them up in her rough version of a triangle. She got all the cans put on the floor and then she stood back, hands on hips, distinctly nodded her head (THAT was just strange, no barrel racer nods for the gate), and then proceeded to walk/trot/jot/stumble through the barrel pattern – LEFT BARREL FIRST. Ok, I know that sounds far-fetched, I know. It’s fact. We have video showing her doing exactly this thing over and over again like watching reruns of the NFR in a Twilight Zone universe. When I first asked her what she was doing she would just look at me like I needed my head examined. What she was doing was plain. (She still gives me that look; thankfully it has gotten fewer and further in between, however). As she started to speak in actual English and not her private toddler language she would tell everyone, “Tum wuk! I wunning barrows.” (Translated: “Come look! I am running barrels!”) I swear, on my bible, which is right here, this is a true story. And actually, she still says that phrase a lot, even at 23. In the first grade a standard writing assignment is “What I want to be when I grow up.” Bet you can never guess what my quiet, intelligent little tow head said she wanted to be? Of course, she wanted to be a world champion barrel racer. About a month ago I had her first grade teacher stop me in town and tell me that she had seen my daughter on WPRA Today on RFD TV. Mrs. S. was overjoyed at how well she was doing professionally and what a beautiful, articulate young woman she had grown to be. Mrs. S. then went back through her classroom files to find the “What I want to be when I grow up” story to use in her class. My daughter is not a World Champion Barrel Racer. Not yet. Today, Sunday, January 26, 2014 she will, however, make her way down the alley at the Denver Coliseum, during the first short round competition of her professional career at one of the most prestigious professional rodeos in the country. The National Western Stock Show and Rodeo is also the location of the first pro rodeo I ever saw at four years old, and the first pro rodeo my daughter ever attended, also when she was four years old. She will be aboard one of God’s greatest blessings to our family, an 18-year-old gray gelding named Cache A Mount and affectionately known as Grizz. She’s been running barrels on this same horse for fourteen years. I’m not going to go into a lengthy litany about this horse, (not today) anybody who knows him knows he is awesome, or he is lucky I haven’t throttled him one days when he’s not just “not awesome” when he’s down right horrid. My daughter is not a World Champion, not yet, but don’t count her out, this dream has been a long time coming and we all know that the greatest journey starts with a single step. Oh, when Grizz, the silver bullet, (It’s Colorado… you have to mention things that are state icons) heads toward the score line, he will be going to the left barrel first! Good luck CJ! We all love you, and we are so proud of you.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 14:12:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015