{"id":39077,"date":"2016-09-10T12:09:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-10T16:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blacktypebugler.com\/?p=39077"},"modified":"2016-09-10T19:57:47","modified_gmt":"2016-09-10T23:57:47","slug":"the-end-of-summer-on-the-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/?p=39077","title":{"rendered":"The End of Summer on the Farm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 Their opening day is October 15th<\/sup> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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My biggest news is that I bought 15 acres of farm land across the road from my house here in Camp Verde.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u00a0the grass fast enough.\u00a0 I move to Camp Verde and the pasture\u00a0maintenance is practically nil unless you want to count the mowing.\u00a0 The irrigating here, is a piece of cake and there are no sprinklers to repair \u2013 just open the valve and watch the water flow out.\u00a0 Pretty neat!<\/span><\/p>\n

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But \u2013 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.\u00a0 Hence the new land.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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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 \u2013 I have to put down\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I guess I could plant something else next spring and let the horses ruin it then seed Bermuda over it next August.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Decisions!<\/span><\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 I was worried because I was\u00a0sending over horses that had been running for a bottom claim of $3000 and in New Mexico the bottom claim is $5000.\u00a0 Of course bottom horses are bottom horses everywhere and mine seemed to handle the class jump well.<\/span><\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 She is undefeated at Albuquerque (where we are running now) and I think she should be claimer of the meet.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 However, it all counts in the end and she won the money!\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Maggie’s Guy by Grey memo has turned into a nice horse also.\u00a0 I claimed him for $3200 or there about, and from five starts he has two seconds and two wins.\u00a0 He is back in Sept 14th<\/sup> for $10,000 and is second choice off the morning line.\u00a0 Pretty neat!\u00a0 he is a\u00a0 big bay gelding that might have a second career future as a jumper.<\/span><\/p>\n

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My new two year old filly, Lady Zip, was one work away from a race and managed to cast her self in her stall.\u00a0 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\u00a0standing back up,\u00a0they get their legs stuck up against the wall and of course they panic and scramble and claw trying to get up.\u00a0 This brings the grooms running and you have to pull them away from the wall so they can get to their feet.\u00a0 Anyway, with all her thrashing she cut her foot right on the hair line (the coronet band)\u00a0between her hoof and her pastern.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I swear I am never going to get one of my fancy two year old’s to the races \u2013 as a two year old!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Last year’s two year old, Likely Story is still sitting in my pasture but will hopefully return to training next month.\u00a0 She looks like a million dollars and her bow looks great.\u00a0 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!<\/span><\/p>\n

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I will soon be sending my yearling colt\u00a0 Ergo, off to start his riding lessons.\u00a0 He knows all the basics and has had a saddle on but not a rider.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Babies aren’t allowed on the racetrack until February, next year so I have plenty of time.\u00a0 He is pretty darn big so I\u00a0will probably have to wait on him too, although he isn’t worth much so\u00a0maybe he’ll get to the races as a two year old.\u00a0 I would hate to have him be my first homebred not to run as a two year old.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ergo’s dam is one of my homebreds named Crown Secret.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She is doing very well for a mare that hasn’t been ridden for six years and raised two colts.<\/span><\/p>\n

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So that’s about it for now.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 One of the grow stands sells the best tortillas and tamales ever\u00a0and I hope they will continue to do that all winter.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 Some of them are quite fancy.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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We are going to do a race horse and jockey scarecrow.\u00a0 Matt wants to do a whole race but I think one may be enough.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u00a0 (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.\u00a0 Until then………<\/span><\/p>\n

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Summer is flying by and it is almost time for the horses to return to Phoenix and the seven month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":364,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/364"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39080,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39077\/revisions\/39080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}