Justa Fast Mule

Fun fact for the day, Gambit's race name was Justa Fast Mule. And his show name is no longer Dare to Compare because my trainer decided all horses on our show team had to have the word 'sweet' in their show name, so we had to change it. It's now Sweet Masquerade, and if you know the horse, this works much better.

Well I have a show tomorrow (YIPPEE), but this means massive work. How to prepare for a show:

Your tack has already been cleaned, and  you stayed up till 11:00 the night before washing your horse and loading the trailer. 

1) Be at the barn at 6:00 in the morning. The barn is in Heber, and I DON'T WANT TO BE IN HEBER FLIPPING UTAH AT 6:00 IN THE MORNING! 

2) Clean up your horse and wrap his legs for shipping. This is a tedious process consisting of, "Oh hey look, I just spent the last five minutes rolling up that shipping wrap, and wow, I dropped it." **10 minutes later** Yes, it's wrapped again and I got every minuscule piece of dust out of it. **Trips** Oh, would ya look at that, I just dropped it. Again. *Tries to stomp off melodramatically and trips again.* 

Five minutes later, try this again.

Whisper to yourself frantically, "I will not drop the shipping wrap, I will not drop it, I WILL NOT DROP THE FLIPPING SHIPPING WRAP!"

Your whispers scare your horse so it farts and you, in pursuit to not smell the horrible gas, cover your nose. Their goes your shipping wrap.

It NEVER works like this

3) Take care of kids horses. Yeah, you not only get to take care of your horse, but of the other eight year olds' horses because they always arrive fashionably late and are "Too young for the responsibility." Too young my butt.

4) Run frantically around barn trying to make sure you packed everything. Leave that bridle you really really really need out because you need to change the bit before putting in the trailer.

5) Once your horse is (by miracle) wrapped this morning, wait in line to load it.

6) Load horse. This consists of pulling on the lead rope and the horse following, then stopping right before the trailer. You pull harder, the horse stays. It's giving you the  I'm-1200-pounds-you're-115-who-do-you-think-is-gonna-win-this-battle-hmmm-let-me-think-oh-hey-I-think-I-got-it-ME-HARDY-HARDY-HAR-HAR-HAR-HAR-NICE-TRY-HUMAN look.

Story of my life

7) Repeat step six eight times.

8) Get in car, then all the little kids arrive, fashionably late, totally innocent, completely clean, in show clothes and well rested (meanwhile you're in the car, hair ruffled, sweatpants and sweatshirt from last night on, hay sticking out from the back of your head, bags under your eyes, and you smell bad).

9) As trailer pulls away, realize you left that super duper important bridle on your tack trunk, and scream and beg your trainer to stop so you can go grab it.

10) Run with as little coordination as possible, grab the bridle, grab the bit, and hey look, your water bottle, grab that too, oh wait there's your video camera, might want that, oh and look, your show breeches!

11) Run desperately for the truck, jump in, slam your foot while closing the door, cover your curses with wonderful things like daisies and butterflies.

12) Now you only have the show to worry about! What could possibly go wrong?!