Girly Sports

When I was a kid growing up in a rural area, it was expected that you were in some way connected to the ranching culture. When I say “rural”, I mean sometimes on the way to school our bus would be caught up in the middle of a cattle transfer from lot to lot. There were times that we were an hour late due to having to wait for the cowboys to get the cattle from one pasture to another via crossing the road where we needed to travel.
I don’t think I knew many kids that didn’t ride horses or participate in some sort of event with them. There were parades, 4-H, saddle clubs, and my favorite; rodeos.
People generally associate horsemanship and competition with masculinity, but did you know that barrel racing and pole bending were created as women’s sports and are generally kept that way today?
Pole bending is really fun, but I happen to suck at it. It’s a competition of speed and agility where there are six poles in a straight line about 20 feet apart. The rider and horse duo leave the start line and race in a straight line alongside the poles to the last one. Upon reaching the last one, they curve sharply around it and then weave in and out through all of them heading back toward the start line. When they reach the final pole, they curve around that one and head back through the poles weaving in and out away from the start line again. When they get back to that initial pole they started with, they curve around it and then race back in a straight line along side the poles until they get back to the start line again. If they knock a pole over it’s a five second penalty for each one. This is why I wasn’t good at it. Horrible in fact.

No, that pic isn't me.
Barrel racing is another story. In that type of competition, there are three barrels set up in a triangle with the “top” of the triangle being centered furthest away from you at the start line. You start out as fast as you can and head toward the barrel on your right making an outside turn around it. Then you cut across the middle toward the second barrel as if you were making a figure 8 in the middle between them and circle that barrel. You then head for that “top of the triangle” barrel making an outside turn and then a straight down the middle run towards where you started from. Hitting a barrel is a five second penalty with this sport, too. I didn’t seem to have the same problem with this one though. I ribboned in this competition.
No, that pic isn't me either.
Sometimes I wish we lived in a setting that would allow MiniMe to have a shot at doing stuff like that on a regular basis. And sometimes I’m glad we don’t.