18.5 seconds

Tucker

"Go go go go go!!" Joanne's brother yells at her "bring him home!" she just made it around the last barrel.

Joanne looks up at the clock 20.1 seconds. "WHAT?!" that was her worst time the whole season. She slumps back in the saddle.

Toby runs up to her "what happened here?" he says somewhat sarcastically.

Joanne rolls her eyes and turns to her friend, Rosie on her horse Blazin'. "See what I have to deal with here?"

Rosie laughs and walks her horse up to the starting gait. "Come on Blazin' you got this." she whispers to him.

In one quick kick Blazin' is galloping off to the first barrel. Oops that circle was really wide I would guess that'd be about 1.3 seconds off her time. They make up that time on the second barrel. One more to go.

"BRING HIM HOME ROSIE!" I scream. Yeah shes competition but shes my best friend soooo.

19.9 seconds..... Damn. Only .2 seconds faster than me. Rosie high fives me on her way out of the starting area.

"Where you going?!" I yell back at her.

"I'm gonna go take a piss. You wanna join me?" she says sarcastically.

"Sure!" I say pretending I didnt sense the sarcasm. I trot up next to her. She rolls her eyes at me.

I tie Tucker up to the trailer next to Blazin'. So some normal people would take the time to walk over to the restrooms. But ya see here I'm not a very athletic person; aside from horses, which is a very muscles needed thing to do. And I suck with words. So in order to understand my way with words you have to.... Think out of the box I guess.

"Dont close it I'm comin' in with you." I say to Rosie. She shrugs and lets me in. Ok this might look weird but we have been friends for 4 years.

"I'm judging your pee stream." I whisper quietly to her.

"Shh I know." she whispers back.

For us this is a pretty normal conversation in a normal setting. Ok so we may or may not have installed a toilet paper holder in here.... Ok we DID install a toilet paper holder. How we figured out how to put it in just right so it wouldn't injure either of the horses is.... I don't even know how we figured that out.

"Should I take Tucker in poles?" I ask Rosie as we are exiting the trailer.

"Hmm. Yeah sure. I'll go in too. So you will have some REAL competition." she laughs.

Great. Now I have no chance of winning. Blazin' is basically always at least one second faster than Tucker and I.

I hop on Tucker and trot over to the sign in for poles. Only one more barrel horse to go in before I go in for poles.

The barrel horse got 19.9 seconds. Nice.

So even though I've done poles, barrels, flags, etc. I still get sooo nervous before going in.

"Number 158 come on up to the starting gate!" The loudspeaker booms. Thats me.

I grab my reins and when I know the time is right is right I start going.

We made it around the first pole almost perfectly 2nd one fabulous 3rd one could have been better 4th one oh shit I just barely tapped it with my foot 5th one took forever 6th one I must've been leaning over to the side to much because the next thing I know I've got a mouthful of dirt.