Sorry camera broken refuses to turn on

Sorry no pictures. My camera refuses to turn on and therefore I'm unable to upload the pictures. I tried fresh batteries. I plan to have the pictures made into a disk before I start yelling at Kodak since the camera is less than 6 months old and I did buy the warranty.

Dixie Blaze will be #9 in Race 2 at Louisiana Downs in Shreveport. The race is at about 1:00 CDT and it is scheduled to be on the turf for about a mile. The hurricane closing in on south Texas could send wet weather that far north.

Dixie won her race on August 21, 2010. She was all alone at the wire. It was truly exciting and my friend Suze was able to make it to the race and into the picture in the winner's circle. Suze was excited, Chris was excited and Judy was thrilled. I was so excited that six of my shots were blurry and I might be able to post one that is decent. Judy Behler is her owner, but we will have a breeders award in time for Thanksgiving. We will be very thankful. This has been an exceedingly tough 2 years.

Chris has managed to remove Terry and his horses from the barn. Now he will start his clean up campaign.

Terry has managed to pilfer so many items it is incredible. Example: all of the screw eye hooks. What I'm angry about is that somehow the new water pump we bought last year is missing. Chris has a long list of items including a starter, hack saw, water tubs, feed buckets and halters. Chris had one room padlocked, but forgot about the kitties room, the location of the water pump. It has been a long six weeks waiting for the barn to clear. Terry had 9 horses in there and was not paying rent.

Chris has been able to install water lines into the barn and has brought in a temporary electric line that we used when the RV was parked here. There is an electric box with wires so jumbled it would take a master puzzler to find where they lead. Fortunately Chris is good with electricity, and should be ready for the master electrician and the inspector from the electric company before the shorter days of winter.

As you can imagine the front part of the barn is filthy and Chris has determined the best way to handle the problem is one stall at a time. Clean it, spray it with bleach and the put down shavings/rice hulls when every thing is dry. Dry is difficult around here, so shavings might take a while. After that he plans to repaint the interior. When the pastures and the barn are ready he hopes to find a few horses whose owners need a place for them to stay. He has room for a couple of steers so he could go that route as well. I suggested pigs, but he remembers my cousin's noisy pigs and said "no".

Chris has two horses left. The filly has been promised to a friend of Judy's who is looking for a riding horse. She's a Bandit has a great disposition and was trained by a friend of Judy's. She has terrific breeding. Her brother, Counter Strike, is the colt left over. Chris has worked with him for months hoping to slip on a halter. He is making tiny steps of progress. It would be nice to get him ready for training to the saddle, since the alternative is the auction and a possible dinner plate in Mexico.

The movie Secretariat will be playing in a theater near you in a few weeks. It's a Disney movie so you can take the grandchildren. My part as an extra is the restaurant scene where they announce that Secretariat has been proclaimed horse of the year. In the scene Penny is told her father has returned to the hospital and is near death. I'm wearing a pink shirt if I didn't wind up on the cutting room floor. Scroll down on the http://horseystories.blogspot.com/ and you will see my pink shirt. It is a good story even though you all know how it ends. Secretariat's statue is at the horse museum in Lexington Ky. A place I highly recommend and worth a day's outing. Tidbit: Secretariat's fillies have done well at the races and are excellent brood mares. His colts won a few races but were not spectacular.

You can keep up with the other part of my life at www.astrologicalinvesting.com We've been very lucky this summer to have five terrific students, our web site has sold some textbooks and I have done a few readings. My New Moon predictions have been pretty good and I have managed to complete 2 e books for Astrology. They are almost ready to sell.

Kaye

pictures at http://horseystories.blogspot.com/

Drought in Louisiana

Buzz appreciates noon shower courtesy of Billy's garden hose.

I haven't written in months because I have had nothing to report concerning the horses and racing. I haven't heard one good horse story, and the news from Evangeline Downs seems to be a constant concern about how the drought has made it difficult to keep the track surface in excellent condition.  

The good News is the wheel on the tractor's bush hog attachment broke and although the new part will only cost $45, it will be about a week before John Deere can get the part.  We are in the midst of a drought so bush hogging is not required, yet.

Maybe all things work together for the best, however it very discouraging around here. 

Acadia is in the midst of a drought and we were lucky enough to put some new hay in the barn just after the drought started.   The pasture goes down hill and the part that usually drowns after a long rain is still slightly damp.  Morning dew keeps the grass wet and green for the moment.  We feed the mares and yearlings several quarts of feed twice a day and they do have plenty to grass to munch and water to drink, and we are ready with hay in case the drought does not abate.  

The original plan to have four horses that we bred racing no longer exists.  Dixie Blaze is back at the farm. She's a Bandit is at the farm until next week when she will resume training. Timely News works out about once a month and Mymamastillstandin the same.  In other words none are ready to enter races. That means for us there isn't a chance to earn a Breeders Award. 

Chris and I have not been to the races is months.  We need to spend every bit of money on the farm. We did watch the Triple Crown races after the fact on TVG (NBC does not have a local outlet here so we don't get a clear signal, but we can pick up the audio) and cheer for Calvin Borel, but that was it.  

We haven't taken the time to even watch Evangeline races on TVG.  

Chris says it's hard to be a pessimist when you have a two year old in the barn and I remind him that they are yearlings. It is going to be a very long two years before they are able to even consider running in a race.  The other four need to stay healthy and fit and hopefully race once in a while.

She's a Bandit racing at the Fairgrounds

She's a Bandit will be #2 in race #2 on March 20 at the Fairgrounds. The Fairground starts later on Friday afternoon and her race will be at about 3:15. Hopefully we hit a Home Run and not only does she win the race, but she is also claimed. Dixie Blaze is training at the Fairgrounds and Judy thinks she will be ready when Evangeline starts racing. It seems she gained a bit to much weight at the Evangeline Training Center. Acadians are just great cooks even for horses.

During the past few weeks I have been posting a blog. The URL is http://horseystories.blogspot.com. cut and paste this URL then stop by to take a peek. You can even sign up for alerts whenever I post a new blog. It is easier to put pictures in the blog and I will archive stories there as well as the text for my speeches to Toastmasters. I'm pretty good at talking to horses, but not so at talking to people about horses.
I'm hoping to do all of my Toastmasters speeches on the topic of thoroughbred horses.

About a week after She's a Bandit ran third, we received a postcard from the Louisiana Breeders association with the amount of the award on the card. Seven weeks later the actual check arrived. Anticipating that this was the routine in their office, I waited and waited and waited for the post card disclosing the amount of the breeders award. After a month I called the office to find out the problem. It seems if there was one bad drug test in any race on the day your horse raced, the racetrack does not send the official results to the Breeders Association. They wait until all appeals have been heard and ajudicated. The post card arrived a week after I complained therefore I probably have wait of seven weeks until the check arrives. Now I have Breeders syndrome. A common complaint among breeders, I'm learning to understand is spending the award check mentally a hundred times before the mailman brings it.

Spreading the News selected High Finance for a sire and she is visiting Pre-K Farm where he stands. The Farm is about 10 miles away along the Bayou Tech which makes it a lovely pastoral setting. She's on the Move and Swamp Scare are still avoiding the gelding we put in their pasture. They jump and play the minute we let them out in the morning, but no sign of going into their cycle.

We finally fixed the broken starter on the tractor then push around a bunch of dirt in the area where we intend to start a garden. We were just about ready to add some sand and some horse fertilizer when it decided to rain. We need the rain, but we should have been faster with the garden. I keep telling Chris that the garden this year is for fun and we will learn a lot from the adventure.