A Look at What We Do For Some Fun

Well, here is what Matt and I spend our days off doing. It sometimes feels as if we have 2 full time jobs. Although we don't get paid for this job, we don't have to pay to board for our horses which is really nice. We go out to the farm every day and help the owner, Norman, jog 9 of his horses and then we jog our 2. This is a picture of Matt taking our mare, NeverLast, out of the barn to jog her. You ride on a jog bike when you are training, during actual races you ride on a sulky and you are a lot closer to the horse. I haven't been brave enough to want to try that yet, but I love helping jog and training days, when we turn them is a blast cuz you are flying around that track.

Here is Matt jumping on the jog cart as NeverLast is jumping at the bit to get out to the track. NeverLast is a great horse, she will definitely get us some checks.

Here is Matt out on the track, it is a half mile track. Most days we jog the horses 4 miles. Usually I jog NeverLast and Matt jogs Xenos, but today we were doing training miles and turning the horses, so to help speed things up I harness while they jog. Turning the horses involves taking them 3 miles the wrong way of the track as if you were just going to jog them. Then you turn them around the right way of the track and you go either 1 mile or 1 1/2 miles at a pretty quick pace. By the time we are ready to take the horses up to qualify, which each horse has to do before they can compete in the races, we will be doing a mile in 2:30, which is going about 25 miles an hour. Tons of fun. To qualify they have to do the mile in 2:15 which we can't do on this track because the track is too hard. Actual race tracks are softer and the turns are banked, which makes it a little safer. Actual races the horses will be doing the mile in closer to 2:00.

Here is Matt coming off the track with NeverLast. She had a great workout today. On days that we turn the horses, I spend the day in the barn harnessing the horses so that when Matt and Norman get off the track the next two are ready to go. Keeps me hopping but boy am I getting pretty good. If I wasn't there to get the next two horses ready while they were out, we would be there all day. On most days though, I jog NeverLast at the same time Matt is jogging Xenos. Harness racing is a blast! Way more entertaining than Thoroughbred Racing.