Hauling with Tammy is always an adventure.
After a delay of three days we finally got on the road Thursday morning about 10:00 AM. Unfortunately we didn't have any vaulters that were able to make the trip with us. In addition to Tammy and I in the truck, back in the trailer were Money, Lady, Cali, Logan and Days loaded in a combination of stock and shoot styles. We were transporting Money to Denver for Ded Dyer (one of the coaches / trainers I knew from my days on the east coast) Lady and Cali are the two vaulting horses that we're using in competition at Nationals. Logan and Days are both curlies from Tammy's breading program that we were bring to new owners in Colorado.
Cali was a bit restless and didn't seem to be pleased about the prospect of a long trip and about being stuffed with four other horses in the trailer. So she kicked a bit as we started out. Everyone seemed to be fine when we made a quick stop at the top of Snoqualmie Pass. But when we stopped for fuel in Cle Elum, we found that Cali had been beating on the back door and that she had bent the hinges on the door by three inchs or more. Worse yet I noticed that she had also kicked poor Logan several times and that he was bleeding. After a brief discussion with a local person we found an empty parking lot where we could unload the horses and rearrange the partitions so that Cali couldn't kick the door or other horses. This operation required removing all the horses from the trailer. We also took time to clean up Logan's wounds as best we could, none of which looked life threatening. We also knew that there was an equine vet next door to our horse hotel in Deer Lodge, MT so we made plans to have Logan checked out the next morning.
The new partition configuration seemed to work out and all the horses seemed to settle down for the rest of drive to Deer Lodge. We stopped several times to check on the horses and made sure that they had all the water they were willing to drink.
As we got into Montana we discovered that a section of I-90 between exit 33 [SR-135] and Missoula was closed due to a forest fire. This meant that we had to follow a detour around the fire that added about an hour to our travel time. We also lost an hour to the time zone change from pacific Time to mountain Time. We pulled into the Mountian View Arena about 1:30 Friday morning. It took us a little over an hour to get the stalls set up and the horses unloaded, fed. etc. It took us about another forty minutes to again clean up Logan's wounds and to walk him to helpreduce the swelling. We were relieved to find that despite his injuries Logan seemed to be walking well. We finally made it to the Motel 8 and got bedded down by 3:00 AM.
We slept for about six hours before checking out and returning to the barn. We found out that the Vet was waiting for us before heading out on his rounds, so our first task was to walk Logan around to the back door of Valley Veterinary Clinic. The vet reaffirmed our initial assessment of the injures and recommended a couple of additional treatments to help reduce the swelling and manage the pain. He also gave Logan a tetanus booster and sold Tammy some supplies, including those we needed to treat Logan, at very good prices.
After the vet visit we walked Logan some more and finally got some breakfast (at about noon). We returned to the barn, worked the vaulting horses a little and again walked Logan, this time on a lunge line. During this session he was obviously feeling better and he even volunteered some trot. We then loaded up the gear and horses, getting back on the interstate about 2:30 PM.
On our way to Sheridan, WY, we made only a few quick stops, but were slowed down by some rough roads. It was 11:30 PM when we pulled into the B&B that also serves as a horse hotel. We ended up putting in nearly an hour of stall preparations before we could unload all the horses, and another hour to treat Logan's injuries and get a the horses fed for the night. So it was nearly 1:30 AM Saturday by the time we got to sleep.
We got up and had breakfast about 8:30 AM. After breakfast we treated Login's injuries and I walked him as Tammy loaded the various buckets and hay bags back in the trailer. We got back on the road about 10:00 AM. Due to some construction we missed the turn off to I-25 and ended up going through Gillette before turning south. This added an hour to out drive time so we opted to eat lunch on the go rather than stop for any longer then it took to refuel and check on the horses. We pulled into Jodi's place, Atlantis Farm, in Ft. Lupton CO about 7:30 PM interrupting the Mile High Vaulters practice.
