The End of Summer on the Farm

Summer is flying by and it is almost time for the horses to return to Phoenix and the seven month winter meet at Turf Paradise.  Their opening day is October 15^th and I am sure my trainer will be glad to get back to his home in Phoenix as soon as the Albuquerque meet ends in late September.

 

My biggest news is that I bought 15 acres of farm land across the road from my house here in Camp Verde.  Unbelievable – I sell out in Humboldt to downsize and end up with less property and a giant house but I just didn’t have enough pasture.  I had only had two horses for the last three years on the property in Humboldt but the maintenance was killing me and the horses couldn’t eat the grass fast enough.  I move to Camp Verde and the pasture maintenance is practically nil unless you want to count the mowing.  The irrigating here, is a piece of cake and there are no sprinklers to repair – just open the valve and watch the water flow out.  Pretty neat!

 

But – my small one acre of pasture land cannot support the three horses I have on it now and I need to get them off the pasture before I do irreparable damage to the grass.  Hence the new land.  I have leased most of the acreage out to a nice young farmer named Zach who has been planting alfalfa hay on the land for many years.  I leased him 12 acres and I kept the top three acres by the road, which he will plow, weed and seed with Bermuda grass (and yes, I know, farmers consider it to be just a weed).  Everyone here uses it for pasture because it comes in with the river water that we use for irrigation and will overtake any other grass you might plant and it is really hard to kill. 

 

I also have to dig a new well and get power in to it and trench some water lines as well as tear down the old deteriorating buildings that are on it. Oh yeah – I have to put down  some AB gravel to make a road extension so the horse trailers can get in and out and lastly fence it into two pastures with shelters and possibly put up a couple of pens (mare motels as they are called) so horses can adjust from racetrack stall to a pasture environment.  The hardest part about this whole thing is trying to decide in what order to do things and worst of all – it is all costing about double what I thought.

 

Zach hopes to get the place plowed and laser leveled this month but it is looking less likely that we will get any grass in this year.  We can’t plant until we get the water in (at least a month) and they shut the ditch irrigation down in November so I would have to rely on winter rains.  We didn’t have much rain last year and young grass planted that late would have to have a guaranteed source of water so it looks like I am going to be behind the eight ball this year. Horses will pull grass out by the roots when they eat, so you need to let the grass become well established before putting horses on it.  I guess I could plant something else next spring and let the horses ruin it then seed Bermuda over it next August.  That would give me pasture for next summer and then get the permanent Bermuda up and growing before going dormant for the winter and give it the winter to to establish a deep root.  Decisions!

 

Well, for the second year in a row the horses have done really well in New Mexico where the purse money is much better than in Arizona since it’s a casino state.  I was worried because I was sending over horses that had been running for a bottom claim of $3000 and in New Mexico the bottom claim is $5000.  Of course bottom horses are bottom horses everywhere and mine seemed to handle the class jump well.

 

AP Pepper is a pretty bay filly by AP Warrior that I claimed last December and after a rough couple of races my trainer got her figured out and she has won five races for me this year, including her last three in a row.  She is undefeated at Albuquerque (where we are running now) and I think she should be claimer of the meet.  I doubt she will get to run again because there are only three weeks left and we were life and death to find a race she was eligible to enter without running her way over head.  She did have to step up to 10,000 claim and she did handle it, but we caught a weak field of 6 which then scratched down to three.  However, it all counts in the end and she won the money!  When she comes back to Arizona she will get a bit of time off even if it is hard to do when they are in such good form.

 

Maggie’s Guy by Grey memo has turned into a nice horse also.  I claimed him for $3200 or there about, and from five starts he has two seconds and two wins.  He is back in Sept 14^th for $10,000 and is second choice off the morning line.  Pretty neat!  he is a  big bay gelding that might have a second career future as a jumper.

 

My new two year old filly, Lady Zip, was one work away from a race and managed to cast her self in her stall.  For those that don’t know what that is, they lay down to close to the stall wall and then when they roll over, which they often do prior to standing back up, they get their legs stuck up against the wall and of course they panic and scramble and claw trying to get up.  This brings the grooms running and you have to pull them away from the wall so they can get to their feet.  Anyway, with all her thrashing she cut her foot right on the hair line (the coronet band) between her hoof and her pastern.  They ended up having to have the vet cut a big hole out of her hoof wall so it could drain and she was fitted with a bar shoe and is moving much better, but it will be awhile before she can resume training.  I swear I am never going to get one of my fancy two year old’s to the races – as a two year old!

 

Last year’s two year old, Likely Story is still sitting in my pasture but will hopefully return to training next month.  She looks like a million dollars and her bow looks great.  Now all I have to do is hope she holds together and makes her first start as a four year old after sitting out her three year old year!

 

I will soon be sending my yearling colt  Ergo, off to start his riding lessons.  He knows all the basics and has had a saddle on but not a rider.  I will probably do that in November and leave him at a really nice place down the road called Hidden Springs for a couple of months.  Babies aren’t allowed on the racetrack until February, next year so I have plenty of time.  He is pretty darn big so I will probably have to wait on him too, although he isn’t worth much so maybe he’ll get to the races as a two year old.  I would hate to have him be my first homebred not to run as a two year old.

 

Ergo’s dam is one of my homebreds named Crown Secret.  She wasn’t bred back this year so I put her in training as a riding horse to see if there is something I can do with her other that have her stand in the pasture along with my other two pasture ornaments Nae Doot and Barilla.  She is doing very well for a mare that hasn’t been ridden for six years and raised two colts.

 

So that’s about it for now.  The grow stands around here are winding down on the produce so that is sad as I have been in fresh veggies for the whole summer.  One of the grow stands sells the best tortillas and tamales ever and I hope they will continue to do that all winter. 

 

Next on the agenda for our small community is the scarecrow contest. Almost everyone in town takes part and there are already scare crows popping up all over town.  Some of them are quite fancy.  After it is up, you take a picture of it and send it in to the judges and they drive around and have to judge the best ones for prizes. 

 

We are going to do a race horse and jockey scarecrow.  Matt wants to do a whole race but I think one may be enough.  Of course since he is building it I really don’t have much say in it but even a small race sounds like a lot of work.  We have to go to a class Saturday to learn what we have to do as neither of us has ever build a scarecrow before  (not that it looks very hard) but they may have some rules or something we don’t know about. I’ll tell you all about it next time.  Until then………