I got a horse...sort of.

I’m still alive and kicking. I’ve just been busy with life and it never seems to slow down!

Yesterday was my Birthday. It was the 10^th anniversary of my 21^st! Hard to believe I’m getting old. I still feel like I’m 21 somedays, but my recovery time and old bones and joints just aren’t what they used to be. Yesterday I got a horse for my birthday. I don’t have him yet, but hubby said I can pick out what I want when the time is right and get it. Obviously I have no idea when that will be but now I have the green light to start actively searching. Nothing has caught my eye on the local classifieds, or craigslist. But I was randomly searching equine.com and found this mare.

 

The reason I clicked on her was because she was listed as a free thoroughbred in Rhame, North Dakota. That was where Piney came from. Turns out the "Second Chance Ranch" has teamed up with a pet rescue and they are listing a few of the horses for giveaway to approved homes. This mare is beautiful. The name listed with her profile doesn't match the equineline pedigree information. But  here is what was listed about her

Very sweet mare!

Her groom made these comments: she used to be really spooky but since he's worked with her she's really improved. He patted and touched her all over while she stood loose in the stall. He said she will get nervous if lots of people are around her. It seems she's stiff in her back especially during gallop workouts. He said some days she runs & plays in turnout like she's fine & other days she just seem stiff. He thought maybe she just doesn't want to run.

Loaded onto the trailer well, great manners

She is stunning.  But she is a mare. And she gets stiff, which I'm sure could be fixed with some chiro work. I do like that she loads into the trailer well and has great manners! That is definately a plus! I don't like that she was spooky and gets nervous with a bunch of people around her. I'm sure she will make someone a great horse if she hasn't already!

Then there was this little guy.

Here is what was listed about him

Off the track TB, very sweet. Loves kids. Has bone chip in left fetlock.

Oh and his name translates to Crazy Person...haha! He is cute, but when I look at him I don't think "that's my horse!" I feel the same way when I look at the mare. They are both beautiful creatures.I feel like I need to be there and meet the horse. What I liked about getting Piney was, I stood there in a pasture filled with horses of all shapes, sizes and colors.He was the one that came up to me. That horse picked me. Which is why I think that when time allows I want to go back to the second chance ranch and stand there in that pen of horses and see what happens. Maybe one of these two are my horse. I think I will just know when I see him.
For whatever reason my heart keeps telling me I want another OTTB. There is just something about them. For those of you who have never bonded with a TB i just don' t know if you can understand what it's like. I've had a quarter horse, and he was my buddy. Maybe it was me but we just never felt as connected as I did with Piney. I'm sure it was something to do with me and had nothing to do with the quarter horses. Every OTTB I've worked with seems to enjoy human interaction much more than the aqha's I've worked with. I duuno maybe I am just a crazy Thoroughbred lady...
So who knows. Maybe we will make the trip to the second chance ranch this fall, maybe we will make the trip next spring. Maybe I will find something tomorrow posted on craigslist that is NOTHING like what I am looking for. Maybe I will find a tiny white pony  instead :-)

dreaming.

I still keep in touch with Piney’s breeder/original owner. She is such a nice woman and I am glad that I was able to track her down and get in contact with her. She always enjoyed little updates every now and then about “one of her favorite horses”. She was saddened to find out that he had passed. I let her know the day that he died, and she told me that we should still keep in touch. And she said there is a reason certain people are brought into your lives.
I wrote to her the other day just to say hello. I told her that I missed Piney like crazy and hadn't found the right horse to fill his place, but that I still had the two boys. She told me that she still thinks about her first horse and misses him too.  She also told me that sometimes they have great thoroughbreds that just aren’t good enough to race, but are great horses. And that she will keep her eye out for one for me. She said that they had one last year that they gave to her friend and he is loved to pieces. She also said that another one of her friends took one of their client’s horses and she is a great riding horse.  You don’t even know how amazing it would be to get another horse from their barn. I would do almost anything. Everyone that met Piney commented on how sweet he was and that someone had loved him dearly when he was younger because it showed in his personality. I know for a fact it was his first owner. When I still had him she told me to kiss his nose every single night because that was what she did with all of her horses.  It’s a long shot that I would ever get another horse from them but it is something I can dream about. I don't ever expect it actually happen, but it's nice to have daydreams.
I have even been invited out to their ranch if I ever visit Arizona. They want me to come and visit the place where Piney was born and raised. It’s a pretty awesome place from what I can see from the website. She had all of the fences shipped from Kentucky and they are designed to be safe for the horses. They also have a horse shoe shaped lake used for aqua therapy for the horses. They train and rehab horses at their ranch. I really hope to make it out there someday because I’d love to see it in person and I would love to meet the people that raised my beloved Piney. They really shaped him into the horse that he was. Care and love really does have such an impact on shaping a horse.
I am so glad that the people that raised him were such nice people. When I was terrified when I first contacted the ranch telling them that I had adopted a horse that had been bred by them. I expected someone to snap at me and tell me not to bother them. But surprisingly they were more than excited to find out where one of their horses ended up. They loved to hear that he was being spoiled rotten and that he had someone to love him. They filled me with all kinds of information about his past and his up bringing and told me about how much they cared for him. It's people like them that the horse world really needs especially in the Thoroughbred industry. I've met so many snooty and snobby horse people that I am pretty gun shy around most. It was such a breath of fresh air to have met such warm and caring people.

It's sometimes little things that hurt the most.

I today it warmed up a little bit but it was still a bit chilly so I decided to pull Pistol's blanket and put a lighter weight one on. I dug out a medium weight blanket that was originally Yellow's but Piney wore it for the first part of winter the first year I had him. I put it on Pistol and it was a bit small but will work for the night. I buckled him up and as I was adjusting the front buckles for the last time I looked down and saw that the barn I boarded at had written "Piney" on the strap. It broke my heart. It really didn't help that it still smelled like Piney either. It sometimes is really small things that hurt the most.

Pistol the Saint.

Well today there was snow on the ground. YUCK. I am not thrilled about the thought of winter. Especially since we had such a wonderful winter last year. I mean wearing sweatshirts and riding in January was awesome!
Last night the wind was howling and there was rain or sleet or hail or something that was coming out of the sky and smashing against the house and windows. It was just about the time I was due to head out to the barn and feed the horses. I had gotten home after dark, because my mom was in town and she brought me shopping and out to dinner. Anyways I had planned on working with blanketing Pistol all summer, and then all fall, or at least when I had daylight and nice weather. But do I ever follow through with any of my plans? Sheesh procrastination award goes to me! When I got to the barn after mixing the boys their supper I noticed that Pistol was shivering and his coat hasn't come in as thick as Duke's. He's still a bit on the thin side so I decided that since it was just going to get colder over night I might as well bite the bullet and throw his blanket on.
I dug through the barn, trying to remember just where exactly I had hidden the winter blankets to keep them safe and obviously they were the last place I looked...in and old army footlocker underneath another old footlocker. I dug out the larger of the two blankets, threw it over my arm and grabbed a halter and lead rope, and said a little prayer as I headed for the boys. The wind was blowing at about 40 mph and therefor shaking the barn making all kinds of creaky sounds. Perfect time to blanket a horse for the first time!! The boys were still munching on their supper when I haltered up Pistol. I shook the blanket next to him. He sniffed it and went back to his dinner. I rubbed it against his body, and he kept eating. I draped it on his back and still nothing. I let the buckles drop and he didnt' even notice. So I started buckling him up and he stood there like a champ. Didn't even freak out as I tightened the buckles to fit around his belly and legs.
So either this isn't his first rodeo with a blanket or someone really did an awesome job to desensitize him to scary things when they owned him before. OR Piney's ghost has entered Pistols body ;-)
My phone had just died when I went to take a picture so I can't show him off. The funny thing is now that he has a blanket on he looks like a fancy horse. :-) Even this morning when I looked out into the pasture I thought that he looked so handsome. He looks really sharp in navy blue. He also looked quite happy this morning when I went to check on them. I'll probably take it off in the next day or so when the temps warm up. It was in the high 80's last weekend and now we have snow on the ground the horses aren't quite ready for winter. Next week looks like we will be in the high 50s and 60s so hopefully we will be back to normal fall weather!

Carrots

Looks like the horses will have enough carrots to last a little while! A coworker of mine was nice enough to donate all these carrots to my monsters. Pistol and Duke were quite happy.

In other news I finally got a new phone! I kissed my old timey blackberry good bye and upgraded to an iPhone!