On the Road with SeeYa
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By SeeYa [Bye Bye Biankus] ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... y name is SeeYa, a quarter horse mare, my human is Sharee, and we live in Oregon. Notice that I said, “My human.” Humans don’t own us, we own them. We own their time, their love, their care, their worries and we own a lot of their money. I have been writing my column since 2004 and my main focus is to train humans. I will take you with me on the rodeo trail as a barrel racer. You would not believe the adventures I have in store for you. What is even more interesting, is the things that happen when I am at home. May 2014 Not only is rodeo season upon us, so is fair time! Yep… they go hand in hand at my house and always have. Any rodeo household with kids, can understand. There are horses, steers, cows, sheep, goats, pigs and the like. At least at my house there is…but my house is STRANGE! All of my humans and animals loaded up and headed for the first fair of the year, which means that Sharee left that man she lives with, Shane, to take care of the rest of us. Now Shane and I have a love/hate relationship. We do like each other but while Sharee is gone, he tries to see how many of my rules he can break! He, of course, gets in trouble when Sharee gets home because I tell her all about it…and he leaves evidence. Rule #1…The human must find me and give me my grain and if it is raining, they MUST bring it to my stall. NOPE! “SeeYa,” Shane calls, as he sets my bucket by the gate and then promptly leaves. REALLY! I have been known to leave it there and not eat it if it is raining and that doesn’t go over so well when Sharee gets home. Rule #2…The human must also find me morning and night in my big pasture to make sure I am fine. NOPE! “So how is
SeeYa,” asks Sharee on the phone. “Fine,” replies Shane. “Did you go out and find her and make sure?” asks Sharee. “Nope,” says Shane. Then there is screaming followed by…”listen, I can see her ears above the blackberry bushes, she is fine.” I am just glad there are only three fairs a year! So….when the troops got home, minus the pig that was sold, Candy Cane, our miniature cow, told me all about it. Pig – All blues, Reserve Champion Rate of Gain, out of 100 hogs, and second highest seller at the sale. Goat – All blues. Sheep – All blues, but didn’t get to go in her showmanship class because she is afraid of sheep! Yep…you heard me right – AFRAID OF HER OWN KIND! Patton, Sharee’s son, got her when she was only five hours old and raised her in the house for three months in a diaper. I don’t want to talk about it. When she got old enough, she went outside to live with John, the 4-H goat. Yep – she has never been around a sheep. She spent her showmanship class outside the ring getting use to the sheep after she jumped up in Patton’s lap and hid her head in his armpit during her conformation class. Only at my house! Steer – Grand Champion Feeder Steer. Champion Intermediate Showman, Reserve Grand Champion Over All Beef Showman. Candy Cane– According to her, she was perfect. According to her, she was the hit of the show AND the most popular. According to her, she got all blues. She also said that she got to be a steer and a horse. WHAT?! It seems that if you are the Over All Grand Champion Showman for your type of livestock, you get to show in a competition called, “Round Robin.” Ok? I guess that means you get to show all five types of livestock and whoever is the best at showing all of them is the BIG WINNER. Fine. Well…according to Candy Cane, she is the best and the safest and bla, bla, bla. She also said that there weren’t any horses at the show until the competition started. Ok. All the little humans went to the other barns to learn how to show other animals that they have not shown before. Fine. Some of the kids are small, so when they came to the beef barn to learn to show a steer, the big humans thought that it would be better to learn on Candy Cane. Makes since. So, what about the horse part???? Since there weren’t any horses to learn on….yep….you are on track. Candy Cane became a horse. Weird! Until next time…just because you are a cow…does not mean you aren’t a steer and a horse… sometimes…SeeYa
................................................................................................................................................................................................. About the Author | Bye Bye Biankus, AKA SeeYa, is an AQHA mare by The Sovereign (Ettabo) x Mzpath Biankus (Biankus). She had a 10 year barrel racing career. She has published two books “On the Road with SeeYa,” volume I and II, along with being published in several newspapers and magazines. SeeYa went to heaven in July of 2017 at the age of 26.
76 Working Horse Magazine 2018 December
