It’s Been A Long Hot Summer

 

 

 

It’s hot, here on The Verde!  This summer has been a scorcher – week after week of temperatures over 100.  The rains have finally come although we are still waiting for a ‘good’ one.  Actually, any rain would be nice.  It seems to go right around us but our turn will come.  At least it has cooled off – now we are in the 90’s. 

 

Sometimes I miss living on the other side of the mountain.  Humboldt is about 10 degrees cooler than Camp Verde.  They had a big forest fire over there the end of June and Humboldt was under pre-evacuation orders so I’m glad I wasn’t there for that!  Still, it was pretty sad, as those of you that have been here a while know I used to do a paper route in all the towns that were evacuated so I knew so many of the people.  The firefighters (God bless them) saved all but five homes and they were very remote – up the mountain near where the fire started.

 

Here on the Verde River I think we are pretty safe from fires as it is all farm country and most of the land is cleared and irrigated and very green.  My place looks lovely, the trees are happy, the grass is green and we planted a bunch of flowers.  The pasture is a bit over grazed as I have too many horses on too small a plot.  I sure will be happy when I can put horses on the place across the road.  Hopefully that will be next summer

 

The fences are up over there and farmer Zach finally got the Bermuda grass planted. It is up and growing and looks great.  I did get a bit of bad news – I just can’t seem to do things right with the Planning and Zoning people.  Deciding to be a good citizen I went in and asked if I needed a permit to put up some corals.  So of course they pull all the papers on the property and tell me that I can have all the permits I want to build things but I can’t put any horses over there unless I have some sort of  propitiatory building that has at least a bathroom and a sink in it.   WHHAAAT???   Seems I live in a special zoned area.  Maybe they think people aren’t going to feed the animals if no one lives there. I guess I was supposed to have a permit for the fence too but – oh well, too late now.  Besides, all I really did was upgrade the fence that was already there.

 

Well, now that I have resigned myself to the fact that I have to build this, I am getting kind of excited about it.  I have decided to build what is known as a Huntbox apartment.  It means the apartment shares a wall with the barn aisle. So I will have a couple of stalls, a barn aisle and the apartment all under one roof.  My brother who is an architect, was horrified – certainly not anything he would design, but drew up some cute plans anyway, so we shall see.  So far nothing has been done.

 

So on to the horses.  Much to my dismay, they all got a two month vacation between the end of Turf Paradise and the start of Albuquerque in New Mexico.  I was kind of mad because all my horses can rest here at my house a lot cheaper than sitting in a stall at a racetrack!  They were supposed to stable at Albuquerque and haul in to Sun Ray to race.  Needless to say – nothing was even entered at Sun Ray.  I think maybe my trainer needed a vacation to take care of some health problems.  But they are back on track now so hopefully I will have a good summer.

 

I swear I have never gone so long in not winning a race.  AP Pepper won last year and then nothing  until last week when Maggie’s Guy came through at Albuquerque.  It was his first start back in almost a year and he got a bit tired but held on for the win.  I really like Maggie and was so glad he won and best of all didn’t get claimed.

 

Oasis Well’s was supposed to run the same night as Maggie but she had a reaction to some leg tightner which caused her legs to blow up so she had to scratch.  I think maybe the trainer was regretting entering her so cheap and was afraid he would lose her and this was the excuse to scratch.  Hopefully, she will be back in a couple of weeks and will be fitter and stronger.

 

Likely Story ran opening weekend and was far from stellar.  She finished 7^th, beating one.  She just isn’t good enough to go against the MSW’s so I’m hoping he’ll run her for about 8000 next out which could be soon.  Her bowed tendon is holding (knock on wood) and she has been training well.  My trainer is adding blinkers – I hope he adds instructions to get her in the race a bit earlier instead of  letting her fall so far back.

 

Ergo continues to train on, and on, and on.  I am about disparaged of his knees ever closing.  He has to be a B (these are vet ratings so people like me have an idea of what they are talking about) and he is only a C.  So no fast works for him.  He does get to gallop out down the lane occasionally and he thinks it is grand fun and wants to do more.  When he is finally asked to do so for real, he probably won’t think it is as much fun.

 

Finally, the two mares I sent to Kentucky are both in foal.  Crown Secret is due in late March and AP Pepper is due in early April.  The farm is very good about sending pictures and they look wonderful and are in a pasture that has tons of grass – darn I wish mine looked like that.  I am toying  with the idea of sending Pepper to NY to be bred to a NY stallion and maybe get some of that NY bred money that they offer.  However, there is not a lot of selection that I am interested in and can afford. Maybe that will change later in the fall.  Then there is the problem of finding a place to keep her.  Depending on how Ergo (Secret’s first foal) does on the track –  I will decide whether to bring her back to AZ or leave her where she is and breed her back.

 

Lady Zip has turned yellow.  She is bleached out from the sun and it is a horrible color.  Luckily as soon as she is brought in or starts to grow a winter coat she will go back to being a pretty bay.  She is turned out with Nae Doot and Barilla and they hate her.  She is like a kid sister and wants nothing more than to be with them.  They chase her off but she is persistent.  That takes care of all nine horses – jeeze, I have a lot!

 

So, that is about all the news from here.  I leave in early August to go to Minnesota and visit my cousin at the family cottage.  Then we will drive over to see my brother’s new lake house in Wisconsin.  That should be a fun couple of weeks on the lakes before heading back to Arizona.

Roys