small thoughts – about John Wayne

Maybe you listened John Wayne’s voice in my last post about Pole Bending.

While I was surfing the Net for something about John Wayne, I found the inscription on his gravestone.

This inscription reads:
“Tommorow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learnt something from yesterday.”

What else should I say?

short story – Rodeo (Pole Bending)

You must believe me!

About one month ago there was a rodeo show in Mutigliano, a very small place very close to Lucca: horses, cowboys, mud and sweat.

It was a pole bending rodeo (see at bottom to understand what I mean) in an equestrian center: cowboys and cowgirls challenged each other riding horses trying to bend all the poles as fast as they could.

I decided to try to follow the neat movements of the horse while its rider leads the gallop through the poles.

I invited a very famous “cowboy” for the sound track of my slide show, John Wayne!

So click below to enjoy (I hope) my audio slide show.

(from Ultimatehorsesite.com) Pole bending is a timed event seen at gaming shows, college and high school rodeo, and various local equestrian events.

A rider and horse run past a timer line to the end of a line of six poles, then turn the end pole and weave down through the pattern, again turn at the last pole and weave back up, then run back home across the timer line. The fastest time will win.

The horse has to not only have speed, but also the agility to switch leads between every pole at a full out gallop.

The pole pattern consists of plastic poles that are set 21 feet apart and the timer line 21 feet from the first pole. The poles are 6 feet high and the base is no more than 14 feet in diameter. If a pole is knocked over, a 5-second penalty is assessed. Fast pole bending times are run in 20-21 seconds.