:)...He's a good kid...uh well, I guess he's not really a kid, 27. ~oh god, I'm old~
Charlie has a lo of knowledge about horses and tack. He has a good friend that is actually alot older then him, that was raised on a horse ranch. This guy, Joe, for some reason took Charlie under his wing when Charlie was like 15 and taught him to rope, and tons of other stuff.
A funny thing about my shoe string tie on my cinches. ABout a year ago, Charlie was helping me work with a horse that did not want to load in a trailer. WE worked with this horse for about 5 hours, and Charlie finally called and asked Joe to come help. While we were waiting on Joe to get here I started riding the horse to keep him wore down, I was loping circles when he got here. When we took the saddle off to start the trailer training Joe noticed I had a shoe string holding my cinches. He's really funny about tack and safety. He started fussing about my shoestring and how that thing was going to break and I was going to be in trouble someday. It didn't help when I told him that shoe string had been there for about 5 years.
A few days later when I wasn't even here Joe came over her got in my trailer, took the shoestring off and put a leather keeper strap on it and left. I never even knew he did it till the next time I rode. I asked Charlie if he had done it, and he told me Joe did.
Well the thing had only been on there about 3 months when it broke:)...my shoe string had lasted 5years and was still fine.
When Charlie noticed I had a shoestring on it again today, he fussed. But then I told him about Joe's leather strap.
The whole thing is kind of funny. I understand Joe's motives where good, and I really appreciated his concern, and it was probably a freak thing that the one he put on broke, the buckle is what actually broke not the leather. But alot of Joe has rubbed off on Charlie, and he just doesn't think that shoe string was safe. He found an old pair of nylon reins and make a keeper strap out of that:)
And yes "turfed" is getting hammered into the ground from a horse:) Charlie has a young horse that he broke and is training for roping and the horse is "snakey" as Charlie says, and one night broke in two, and Charlie didn't stay on:( He didn't get hurt really, just sored him up.
Becky
Shoestrings are under-rated!
That's pretty funny about the leather strap/shoestring story. The only time I had something break was on an old western saddle that I had stored away. I was riding this young horse in it and we were going up and down a small hill when the entire fender fell off on one side. The leather had dry rotted. Sure was a surprise! The horse didn't appear to notice anything wrong, luckily.