Gambling

When I was in college I took a statistics class.  I struggled with it despite being a math person myself, because the professor was extremely soft-spoken and it was difficult to hear him, as well as the fact that he was opposed to using an eraser on the chalkboard.  This resulted in many a lecture spent at the front of the classroom, straining to both hear and see what was going on with the equations.  I determined that I needed some additional help, so I went to see the free tutor in the study hall specifically for this class.  He was a statistics major, and so I naively assumed he would have a grasp of the topic.  He seemed to be able to solve the problems himself, but because it came naturally to him he struggled to explain the concepts to me, to whom the information did not come easily.  On the other hand, he also spent quite a bit of time telling me about his excitement about his upcoming trips to Blackhawk, a casino here in Colorado.  I was also confused by this, as he was a STATISTICS MAJOR and I figured that would mean he had some grasp of what the odds were of hitting it rich while gambling...

This weekend reminded me of my statistics class and was a gamble in a few ways.  Firstly, Friday morning I needed to move big round bales into a few of the paddocks for the horses.  Normally I do this by shoving the bales around with the lowered bucket on my tractor, as I don't have the hydraulics to lift 1000+ lb bales with my small 1950s Massey Fergueson.  I've lived here for four and a half years now, and so far have not had much difficulty placing the bales in their final destinations using this method, despite some gradual hills on the property.

This morning, however, I gambled and nearly lost.  I was pushing a bale along the back side of the horse trailer and barn in some significant wind, when suddenly the bale got away from me.  I immediately stopped the tractor and watched in slow-motion as the bale proceeded to tremulously roll downhill, rotating end over end three times until it finally halted against the wall of my trailer.  It was close enough that I was going to have to do some careful maneuvering to get it away from the trailer without scratching the trailer.

My truck was also parked in its usual spot, which meant I didn't have enough room to get the tractor to the correct angle of the bale to get it un-wedged from its resting place.  I went in the house, grabbed my truck keys, and moved the truck out of the way.  Then I restarted the tractor, carefully shimmied the bale away from the trailer, down the backside of the barn, and into the west paddock.  Thankfully no damage was done, though I feel fortunate that this gamble worked out for me in the end.

The other weekend gamble was in Denver, at the showjumping competition called the Gambler's Choice.  This is a competition where riders have sixty seconds to take their horses over a series of jumps that the rider chooses, with each jump worth a certain number of points.  If they clear the fence they earn the points, if they knock anything down they don't.  At the end of their minute round they have the choice to jump the Gambler's Choice fence, the largest and airiest looking jump in the arena for 200 points, but if they don't make it they lose 200 points.

We watched the twenty four pairs go, and had a great time observing the different riding styles and different jumping styles of each horse.  One rider had a surgery on her ankle prior to the competition which removed a portion of the ankle.  Because her ankle was non-weight bearing she was doing the competition without stirrups.  That was certainly a gritty ride, she was very determined!

Between memories of statistics class, gambling with a 1000 lb hay bale in the wind, and the showjumping gambling, I think I've had enough gambling for a while!