Ranch Remuda Sale, and Picking Piggies

We had a long, full weekend overflowing with activity.  Thursday afternoon, we made the 4 1/2 hour drive to Chino Valley so we could attend Cattleman's Weekend on Friday.  The Prescott Livestock Auction puts the whole thing on and it includes a ranch horse remuda sale, heifer sale, and bull sale.

We were mainly there for the horse sale, and we were impressed by the quality that we saw, and the way the  sale was handled.

Every horse in the catalog was checked by the vet for soundness, age was verified, and the horses were numbered on the hip.  All horses were guaranteed sound.  The first order of the day was a conformation judging with all of the horses in the arena.  Afterward, each horse entered the arena alone and was expected to do the same series of tasks:

First, they trotted into the arena, loped figure eights with lead changes, backed, circled each direction and made two sliding stops.  Then they released a steer from the chute and they showed their cutting skills, and the horse's cowiness.

Next, they allowed the steer to run past, and had to get ahead of them and cut the steer off several times.  

Finally, they had to rope the steer and drag it. Many times another contestant would heel the steer and the header would get off his horse as if doctoring a cow.

That evening they sold the horses.  We were looking for a new horse for our two older kids, and mainly one that our son could rope off of. There were 4 horses that we were really interested in, although I believe that nearly half of them would have fit the bill.  We stayed away from the three year olds because although they looked good, we still need a horse that is smarter than our 11 year old around a rope. Unfortunately, horses 3 and 4 on our short list came up before the 2 horses we wanted the most. We erred by holding out because our top two choices went higher than we were willing to go, and we had held out and passed up on our bottom two choices which were affordable.  Lesson learned for next year. 

Since we didn't walk away with a horse, we would have used the money to buy a pen of heifers, but the heifer sale was right before the horse sale, so we were holding our money for the horses.

Nothing seemed to be in the right order for us that day. I guess it just wasn't in the cards for us to fill our trailer. LOL!  We still had an incredible time, and ate fabulous smoked tri-tip sandwiches, pulled pork, charro beans and potato salad.  The weather was gorgeous with temps around 75 degrees F, and as people were clearing out of the yard for the evening, I couldn't help but notice the big, blue sky surrounding the valley that we were in.

We got home around midnight, and woke up early on Saturday morning. I was in charge of an equine shot clinic for our 4-H club, and had the vet come out and give spring vaccines for all of the horses before the big riding season is upon us.  Afterward, the whole club rode in the arena for a few hours.  Since we've been covered in snow for 5 months, some of those horses hadn't been ridden in a while, and things got a little western in the arena. Our baby rode Old Jake, and he was a perfect gentleman...as always.

Saturday afternoon, we drove out to a small pig farm to pick out our 4-H pigs.  They are only a week old, so we can't take them home for another 6 weeks, but they sure were adorable! How can a person look critically at muscling and confirmation when there is so much cuteness to distract you? I could barely concentrate. I wanted to take them all home.

Baby piggies are precious, I don't care who you are, you can't deny it.

We finished the evening with a trip to the pasture to check on the "heavies" and fix some fence that a yearling went through.  My in-laws treated us to Booga Red's Restaurant for some Chili Rellenos, and it was the perfect ending to a long day.

Now I'm back to reality and Monday morning laundry,

Nell