Last year I had two goals for myself; One was to get in shape and get better at goat tying, and work on my barrel racing skills. I had lots of people helping me achieve these goals. I worked with a lady who used to do college rodeo and she was really good at goat tying. I’d go meet her once a week and she would teach me everything she knew, she even gave me one of her old goat tying ropes to practice on. At home I worked on practicing everything I had learned from her. I even started teaching one of my friends who I rodeoed with how to tie goats. I had learned that if you try and teach what you have learned to someone else then it’ll really help you. My horse was even learning how to run past the goat so I got off of him while he was still moving. 

 I had also started working with two other women who were helping me with my barrel racing. One of them went to a lot of barrel races and had great horsemanship. With her help I had learned what I had done wrong after a run. Like if I needed to drive my horse a little faster out of the first barrel and into the second, or if I needed a bigger pocket so I would’ve knocked down the barrel, maybe I sat down too soon and my horse tried to turn before it was time. I was even doing the same thing with goat tying. I would start to notice if I didn’t grab the legs right, or flank correctly. Or if I face-plant and know that I clearly didn’t get off of my horse correctly. 

I had started to set new goals for myself. The goals were to beat my own time from the last rodeo. 

The last rodeo I went to was a two day rodeo. The first night it had started raining and we had to call it for the night and finish the last two events in the morning. And that’s all I remember, because that second day as I was running barrels my horse gave to his back leg and we fell. I hit my head and took a nap in the arena. I ended up in the hospital in El Paso Texas. Which I live in New Mexico so I’m guessing it was a lot to drive. I still do not remember what happened or being in the hospital. 

I guess I succeeded in reaching my goal, but then I’ve had a set back to my bigger goal. Which was to win a saddle from rodeoing. My horse hasn’t really recovered from that fall and I don’t even know if I can ride him again. He was already old but he still had a lot left to give. I honestly don’t know if I want to continue with rodeoing. The only other horse I have to ride is only good for working on the ranch. The longer I don’t ride and stay away from the rodeos the more I don’t feel like wanting to do it. I’m not sure how I should feel about it, but I’ve got way too much going on with my show animals, so I’m trying to just focus on them.