Bucks Journey Chapter 3

Bucks letter;
As time went on forgetting about the jockey school and Buck's realizing after working two years and some months at a sprinkler factory and his girlfriend growing more into a women, a time has come in both of there life's to move in a different path, nothing lasts forever no matter how wonderful it may be.

Bucks girlfriend has decided to move on and Buck wasn't part of the moving on. Who could blame her having a excellent education and the look of a queen, not with the blond hair but with the long brown hair down below her bum, dark brown eye's and being 5ft what a sight anyways she decided to move on to better things and well Bucks finding himself being interested in getting back to the beach. The sprinkler business has also reached its limit so once again Bucks thinking about the idea of beaches and women and another types of work. Ending up getting a waiters job at a place called Hanks, a sea food restaurant right at the Newport Beach Pier.

Funny Buck ends up back were he started when he was younger. Spending the summer there among his fellow beach bums, Buck receives a letter from the jockey school. They requested him to show up on March 10 well if that's not the oddest thing that's Bucks birthday unfortunately its his 21 st. Finding himself a bit older to start something new and having no real future at a sea food house at the the age of 21 and no education Buck takes the jockey school on.
Buck jumps in his 67 chevy super sport grabs what little he owns and heads out to Chino California. Arriving at this farm well actually it was like something out of the wild wild west! Driving along the out side of the property miles and miles of v-mesh fencing who's to know it was like about 1000's of acres or so, this was overwhelming to say the least, there must of been about 500 or 600 horses at least cattle every where.

Anyways Buck goes to the main office and introduces himself and two tall cowboys walk out and look at Buck wareing a tank top, shorts, thongs and hair down to his waist which was gone real soon (clothing thongs and hair). Buck says hay man whats happening the old two cowboys look at Buck and say howdy and scratch there heads. Well one would think this will be Bucks last day but the funny thing is little Buck hit it off with the old two cowboys and they all laughed and had some fun.

Buck not really knowing anything about the horse world and realizing that these two old cowboys come to find out was a hall of fame trainer and the other was considered one of the most successfully owner and breeder in the world. They talked and messed around a bit and had some fun with Buck and then brought Buck over to what they called a dorm. Buck brought his stuff in and they explained to him many things that was going to happen and that at 4 am sharp breakfast will be served. Meantime all the other students were in the dorm and Buck and all of them got acquainted oh ya out of 300 application's only 7 people were picked.

Well 4 am cameup real quick and Buck being curious and excited about the first morning he was able to be up and ready to go, of course being from the beach most surfers or beach bums got up early it's a beach thing. Anyways sitting down to eat this tall older women with a bit of a horse sounding voice saying eat up and make it snappy we don't have all day. I guess she meant what she was saying cause as soon as she said that she started picking up the plates. About the time everyone was ready to sit back a little some Spanish cowboy mid 30's comes walking in (Albert) wearing these big Spanish spurs and yelling if you want to be riders get yours ass's up and lets go, he's walking out were all running to keep up this guy was huge..

He then loaded us up in a van hauled us down the road about 30 minutes or so to the other part of the farm. He brings us in this huge barn looks like its 100 years old with stacked plank oak for the stall walls and about 200 stalls, dirty stalls and horses in them (mares) alot of mares. My gosh we did stalls from 5am to 8pm.

The stall duty went on for a few months and as time went on we all got a handle on the stalls handleing the mares, bring them in and out grooming and still doing stalls all the time. Being more or less a bunch of drug store cowboys but from 4:00 am in the morning to eight to nine in the evening we were all learning how to walk around like bulls.

Ya we got lunch and dinner at the dorm so the conversations were quite entertaining from what we used to talk about and now its about horses. I guess if you involved yourself in the conversations it was a easy way to tell if you were going to make it as a cowboy at this farm. Were finding ourselves spending more time working with the mares.

Oh ya there was this old mean looking cowboy that supposedly been at this farm since it began, the old cowboy with chew dripping out of the corner of his mouth a cowboy hat that it would've been a good idea if he either threw it away or burned it not to metion the clothes he was wearing, but I'll say this once you got to know him and heard some of his long tall tales he was real cool to say the least and with his old tractor he drove maybe a 1925 ford pulling this cart that must of been used for one reason only cause it sure smelled like it, he (Howard)was the main man along with some partner of his and they much did all the stalls all day long. We soon graduated from most of the stall mucking spent more time working and cleaning and handling the mares you know grooming etc, day after day seven days a week.

The kids were getting tired and the cowboys were just beginning, funny thing is who ever thought some beach bum would hang in there and soon began to expand out a little more. Then all of a sudden were all going to learn to be real cowboys were going to work with hundreds of cattle we branded them,we castrated them, the horns were cut off we treated pink eye, what a ordeal hundreds of cows weeks on end.

At this stage we all began walking like cowboys meaning a lot of hard honest everyday dirty work rain or shin the beach bum almost started to wear a cowboy hat. Were all finding out whether this is right for us, some of the other kids I say kids cause all the other students were 16 or 17 some with a little horse back ground some none anyhow a few have come to a decision that the city life was much more attractive so they began the old call home and save me in the hat trick.

Buck well he had no one to call except his uncle which he has been staying intouch with and that kind of phone call wasn't going to be the answer so Buck continued on. One morning all of a sudden about 4:00 am we were really put in a bums rush to get to the other end of the farm (chino) soon after we got there about 10 big cattle trucks come driving up and backed up to the big barn, instructions were to load the mares, Buck thinking I've never walked a horse outside the barn area or into a big trailer well little did Buck know all at once the gates all opened and closed a certain way by a few cowboys and a maze soon was made.

Someone yells open the stall gates and run those mare's down here well believe it or not every mare for about 7 hours ran perfectly in the loading area and loaded right up without a bit of help, those horses did better than if one was to handle then one by one. Were ending this chapter seeing that the mare's are all gone and there's nothing but a lot of stalls to be cleaned again and repairs and there's no horse's but a few pony's.

Buck has an idea that some thing was about to happen but didn't quite know what. Meantime time was on his hands so see chapter 4 and will tell you what happens with the time thats on Buck's hands and what he gets into and what the furture holds.