Our college senior came home for the weekend because she had invited a friend to rodeo. We enjoyed the usual sights, including a visit to the critter barns and a stroll down the midway. After lunch in the club, we watched the usual rodeo events. Mutton bustin' is still one of my favorites.
I was surprised to see a contestant from a tiny little town near my tiny little hometown in southeast Texas. Cheek is an area where some of the kids attended my school district, while the rest of them attended the schools my husband attended. Good news for Mr. Harrison - he won his steer wrestling heat with the fastest time.
My least favorite competition is the bull riding. I duck my eyes and can hardly watch as the riders wait for the buzzer to hit eight seconds. Talk about anxiety producing, at least from my perspective, hoping the contestants won't get hurt as they hang on for dear life.
Music entertainer Keith Urban played several songs I was familiar with from the radio. At one point he got off the stage and stopped almost directly in front of the section where we were seated. Pretty exciting, y'all. Unfortunately for all of the Urban fans, his set got cut short because of a mishap with the Budweiser Clydesdales.
The majestic team of horses pulling the beer wagon rolled out to everyone's surprise. It was impressive to watch. They stopped in front of our section and we got a really good look at it all. As they were about to go into some maneuver, the lead horses swung around and ran into the horses directly behind them. I have no clue why they did this, but it caused an immediate response from the wagon drivers and various rodeo folks. Everyone dashed out, but not in time to stop the front right lead horse from taking down one of the second pair of horses. At that point I had to stop watching. After initial gasps, you could have heard a pin drop in the arena.
They immediately covered up the downed horse's head to try and settle it. There were several folks on the scene, working to undo all of the rigging to detach the front pair that caused the pile up. They got the downed horse unhooked, as well as its partner. Then they led everything away from the downed horse so they could see if it was injured. After several attempts, it was finally able to gain its legs and walk away. Talk about scary. Not to make light of the situation, but I was hoping they weren't gonna have to bring out a gun and shovel if it was severely injured. Though I imagine a forklift would be more appropriate for a horse that size. Which makes me think I've been watching too much Yellowstone or 1883, ha-ha!!
FOOTNOTE to my original post: It seems the Clydesdale mishap made it to a national news website. I've circled our family in the stands (top left side in both) as seen in pics from the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment