11/17/05 Pardner I

Pardner Pardner was a colt we raised that raised a lot of excitement in his own right. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll tell you about him in one minute. Pardner was a colt from my good roping mare, Shamrock, but he didn't turn out quite as good as her. He started out as a real nice colt to halter and work with and he stayed that way until we started to ride him. I was getting over minor knee surgery at the time, so my brother, Dane volunteered to start Pardner. The young horse worked fine through his groundwork and was acting like the partner his name implied. On the first ride Dane took, we learned a little bit about Pardner's mind. The colt wanted to buck a little; which is all right, except Pardner only bucked under the eaves of the barn and not in the open corral. The first pass was kind of funny, watching my brother dodge barn eaves and keep his seat, but by the second and third corral revolutions, we could see Pardner was using the barn to his advantage. He was smart, but that's not a good smart, that's a sneaky smart. Well, we overlooked that first ride and chalked it up to amusement, except Dane didn't see as much humor in the situation as I did. Besides, the horse had to turn out all right; he was Shamrock's colt. By fall I was riding Pardner and let's seehe only bucked seven times one day. Each time was right through the cows we had gathered. I was pretty proud of my riding that day, but everyone else was absolutely disgusted with my herding techniques. Oh well, he'll be all right, Shamrock bucked when she was young and she turned out just fine. Tomorrow, I'll tell you how Pardner turned out. I'm Jeff Keane.