Dark Show Days

The announcer says the final placements of the novice class. There was one more 4-H class before mine. My steers were all ready to go, warmed up, prepped for showing division, and in their yoke. Everything was going exactly to plan. One of our classes was already done. There was only two classes left to the day. Of course they were the ones I was best at. Me and my team had trained for so long for this one day. I knew it was going to be a good day for our try outs. That was until I heard my family’s name being yelled from the person on barn watch.

Once I heard the yelling I got up from the top of the bleachers. My best friend and the kid of the woman who was yelling, an old friend of mine, jumped up and ran down the bleachers and to the barn. Once I got in I saw my off steer, my favorite one, laying down with a lot of blood on his head. When the team is in the yoke they should never be allowed to lay down due to it can be very dangerous because they are connected to another animal who stays standing.

My best friend and her dad immediatly went and unyoked the one standing up before unyoking the steer who was laying down. Once I was out of my state of shock I saw that his right horn was bleeding and the blood was already mostly down his face. One of the announcers came around to see what was going on. Once she saw she immediatly got all the people for the next class out of the barn and called a vet for me. My best friend, her father, my mother, and another man helped me get my steer up so we could move him to a safer part of the barn across the row from his partner.

We were wiping up the blood that was on his hair. My best friend was doing all that she could to help me stay as calm and help me walk the steer around until he couldn’t stand on his own. The announcer came at the noon lunch break and said that the vet wouldn’t be able to be here until 2-3. That was a couple more hours that we had to make sure my steer was going to be ok. Once 3 oclock came around we were told that the vet was not far away. Most of the teamsters and parent’s had left now due to the show had been over for an hour or so. All of them came and gave me a hug. one girl was the last one to leave and she came over to make sure we didn’t need anything else.She had gotten blood on her white show shirt due to she had came over before her show and helped me keep his head up so they could turn him over so his bad horn wasn’t in the shavings.

Although everyone else had left my best friend, her dad, and the woman who was on barn watch stayed behind. The vet had come, wrapped up my steers horn and said it was only the outer shell that fell off. He only was laying down not due to amount of blood he lost but due to the location of the injury. The vet told us that ” when a steer deshells a horn it is like a nail being ripped off where your ear is. The pain is so much that they can barely handle it”. My best friends dad offered to take my other steer home in her trailer and the women who was on barn watch’s husband offered to bring home all of my items I brought to the show so we could have a empty trailer so my injured steer wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into anything on the way home.

This was one of the most stressful times of my showing years. That day was so stressful all in its own that I would not know how it would not have worked out if it were not for the people who helped me. My best friend and her dad, while I didn’t mention it too much, were probably my largest help. She helped me mentally and they both helped my family physically. There have been so many occasions where she has come to my rescue although this is the one that sticks in my head the most. I don’t know what I would do without her. While her and I do not talk much anymore when ever I message her if I am in a time of need she is still there to talk to me and help me through.