As in my previous entry, the prognosis was good, but the vet wouldn't committ to how long he might be out of commission.

I started looking at horses to buy just so I could get through the spring recieving cattle and doctoring yearlings. Before I go on, I must thank Todd McCaughey, Tom Winsor and Benjie Lemon for their generous offers of lending horses. I looked at a couple of horses and let me tell you, nothing makes you miss your top mount like trying others.

At any rate, I spent an evening or two trying some horses, fully expecting Badges (who we're now calling Bandages) to be out at least 6 months. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

Then, yesterday I read Bonnie Davis's blog, Hoofprints and Campsmoke. Suddenly, I didn't feel so bad. If you haven't got the chance to give it a read, check it out.

Then, later in the day, the vet came for a follow-up exam with Ol' Bandages. She was amazed at his recovery. I don't want to get ahead of myself, because there's always the possibility of setbacks, but starting Monday I can hand walk him. After a week of that, I can begin longeing him and one month from today I can start riding him.

Dr. Collela (who I'd also like to thank for her outstanding diagnosis and treatment) thought he might be back to full working capacity in two months. Amazing. 

He's got some body swelling and stiffness, but we're hopeful that exercise (and maybe chiropractic and acupuncture) can take care of that.

So we'll see, I'll definitely keep this blog updated on his progress and, beginning next week, I'll get back to the rodeo blog. I'm headed to San Antone for the short round tomorrow.

I’ve got a horse my family raised—Badges—he just turned eight and he’s a Playboy’s Badge out of a Rey Jay mare. They’re cutting horse bloodlines. His registered name is Blazing Badges.

After my brother broke him and my dad started him on cattle, he found his way to me. I suddenly had a really nice little three-year-old and a full-time office job. Didn’t have a real good place to keep him, but I was hoping my small cattle enterprises would grow to the point I’d need a good horse. By circumstance rather than choice, I brought him along really slowly. I couldn’t pay for training and I couldn’t ride him all the time, but he had a solid foundation, so I wasn’t too worried about it. 

Slowly, he came along to the point where I could drag calves on him, then rope and doctor yearlings in the pasture with some help. 

Old Badges isn’t the prettiest horse I own, but he’s got more heart than about any other horse I’ve ever ridden. Plus, he learned so fast and was just solid from day one. 

He’s got his drawbacks. He’s not an easy keeper. He doesn’t grow much hair in the winter or lose much in the summer. He’s not conformed perfectly. And perhaps his greatest flaw: he’s accident-prone. 

It started harmlessly enough. The first winter I owned him, he stuck his foot through a barbed-wire fence and cut his heel bulb. No big deal. The next winter he stood on a log out in the pasture (I think) slipped off and sprained his suspensory. Out a few months right when I receiving cattle. 

Despite it all, I grew up as a cowboy on him. I began doctoring cattle by myself on him…we learned together. He’s kind of goofy. A couple time’s he’s gotten lazy or distracted and  fallen with me at a walk, but there’s been other times I wouldn’t want to be on any other horse. Like the time I had a Longhorn bull in with my cows and we roped him and got him in the trailer—pretty much just the two of us.
He’s a little goofy and a little ugly, but he’s my signature horse.
Last winter, he got tangled up in a chicken coop and cut his hock. There’s another four months out before I could ride him—just as I was getting cattle in. By the way, this coop was in a corral at my family’s ranch he had grown up in and spent almost all his time in whenever we visited. 

In a way, it’s been good that I’ve been forced to use my other horse, Deuce. He’s come a long way and I can doctor in the pasture alone on him, too, now. It’s hard to catch the one that needs work when you’re in a hurry and you’ve got the old solid standby ready to go. But Deuce has made a horse. 

This winter I wasn’t using my horses as much. I sold my cows, but was helping a friend with a couple hundred 400 lb. calves he was wintering. So I’ve been able to ride and rope some. Plus, I bought a couple of lead steers I’ve been using to work on my roping mechanics. And, most fun for me, Badges has been teaching my wife Kristen how to rope. It’s actually been a good winter for horse activity. 

Then disaster struck. When I went to feed yesterday morning, Badges didn’t come in the stall. I looked into his run and saw feet sticking straight up in the air. I rushed out and he was alive. He had been horsing around with Duece across the fence and must have reared and struck and his leg came down between the gate and the fence. He hung up and flipped. The snow was about a foot higher there than normal, so I think that’s why he was able to get up that high.     

I ran and got the bolt cutters, cut the chain and rolled him over. It was bad. I could see bone on one leg, a cut on another and blood everywhere. Somehow, by the Grace of God, the leg wasn’t broken, but I figured it might not matter. 

I called the vet, Dr. Holly Collela, immediately. In the meantime, I started drying him off. From the looks of his struggle, he had laid there all night. It was snow-packed and icy, but the spot where he laid had melted about 3 inches down. He was shivering. I did my best to dry him off, put a blanket on him and waited. Somehow, the rascal still had an appetite. 

When Dr. Collela got there she and her staff of interns went to work. They cleaned him up and we took him to my friend’s place that has a washrack and a heated stall for him to recover in.
The diagnosis is still uncertain. If we can avoid infection and the bone isn’t damaged in a way that the X-ray’s can’t detect. He might recover. There doesn’t seem to be any tendon damage and somehow his cannon bone isn’t even fractured or cracked. 

As we got him calmed down, cleaned and wrapped, Dr. Colella said something that encapsulated old Badges pretty appropriately. She said that a lot of horses, laying upside down, trapped all night long in sub-freezing temperatures would have probably just died. There’s quite a bit of pressure on their lungs and as a prey animal, some just give up. 

Badges didn’t, that big old heart just kept right on pumping.
Just 24 hours after the fact, he’s doing well and he’s been a good patient. He’s extremely sore, his entire right side is swollen. His joints seem stiff and of course he’s very tender on both front feet. So there’s the drama. I’ll keep you posted on what happens.

Just the other day in Denver, for example, I saw two brothers, Riley and Brady Minor, win their third rodeo in a row. There’s no way to know for sure if that’s ever happened before, unfortunately, and it sure might have. But consider this: two brothers, winning two somewhat significant rodeos and one big one (Billings, Odessa and Denver) in a row. That’s at least seven steers and easily over 100 teams they had to get past. Pretty remarkable for two kids who couldn’t even rent a car if they needed to.

I saw some other cool stuff in Denver, too. In the short round a kid named Dusty LaValley of Crooked Creek, Alberta, rode Calgary Stampede’s Grated Coconut—perhaps the best bareback horse ever—for 91 points. It was amazing. He didn’t win the average, but he turned a great ride. It was a battle. That strong horse bucking beautifully versus a cowboy matching him jump for jump was one of the best bareback rides I’ve seen.

I think this is an appropriate place to give kudos to the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo for continually improving its rodeo. San Antonio set the bar for winter rodeos, and Denver has stepped up, using Cervi, Calgary, Kesler, Burch, Brookman and Guidry bucking stock to make a riding contest instead of a drawing contest. Plus, they’ve made it so contestants can make their first and second round runs or rides in back-to-back performances.

So all those things manifested themselves in a great short round in Denver—the best I’ve seen there since covering the sport.