Bittersweet

Well, since Romeo's been on a winning streak the last two weeks, I decided to take him to another local barrel race this weekend in hopes I could muster up the courage to push him even more.

Well, things didn't really go as planned. You know how I mentioned before the I could not get Romeo to understand the whole stopping factor? Hi Ho Silver, our tires were screeching like no other yesterday afternoon.

Instead of his usual third barrel blowout, Romeo had some difficulties turning around the 1st and the 2nd, but ironically came around the 3rd in decent time. Looking back at the video, confused and disgusted with how last time I ran him he was so smooth, and now he's back to not knowing what he's doing - I realized he was looking like he was very much in pain. I have mentioned before that Romeo suffers from melanoma - skin cancer. He has growths all over his body, including his lips which continue to get bigger and bigger. I have been trying to use a hackamore (headgear without a bit, so that his mouth doesn't get torn apart) the last month or two on him, but I had to switch him back to a bit two weeks ago when I was switching gear around.

My theory is that Romeo's mouth was sore from being in a bit the last two weeks, so he was less sensitive to the racing bit in his mouth yesterday. He went into the barrel like he was going to turn it, and when I tried to help him around on the backside, he literally stopped in his tracks and his head came up = not good, very much in pain.

We finished the run 1.5 seconds slower than we had ran two weeks before. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed, confused, and worried.

Why would Romeo just do a 180 on me? What did I do wrong?

Well, cross your fingers folks that we get it figured out. First step is getting him back into that hackamore, and trying him out in another week or two at the next barrel race.

Funny thing is?

Texas and I left the barrel race before they finished because I assumed my time wouldn't win any money, not even in the slowest division. I checked online this morning to find out that we won the "slow" division for a prize money worth almost 4 times what I paid to enter. Woo! I guess that was Romeo's way of saying, "Sorry Mom, my mouth hurt, but here's some money, please forgive me?"

We'll see Romeo, we'll see...