The New Guy

Just a quick, exciting update: I've got a new sweetheart!

He's not mine, really. He belongs to R, who I love, and who has offered to give him to me for free. Unfortunately, a certain lovely lady is costing me everything I have right now and I can't afford to take on a new one.

Without further ado, this is Jethro.

He is a four year old OTTB, JC name Wasalcoholinvolved. He's a tremendous sweetheart, and very quiet and calm. I am in love with him. I obviously can't ride, so we took along M, the girl who lets me ride Calvin. She's never ridden a horse so recently off the track with no retraining, and he was a very good boy. He never offered to get strong and tried very hard to figure out what she wanted (which wasn't much, I just wanted to see if he'd walk and trot around the paddock without doing anything weird). When we got him back to the lesson barn, he hopped off the trailer and R put him in a stall. He was a little bit like, "Hey, lemme look around!" So M took him for a little walk, and he ate grass and settled in like a pro. He probably thought he was at the weirdest track ever.

I think my arm is better enough that by tomorrow I'll be able to start ground work with him and should be able to get on by the weekend. I don't think he's going to cause me any particular issues. I wish I could keep him, but that isn't how life works. I always end up keeping my resale projects, so it's good that he's firmly in R's custody and I don't get tempted.

Speaking of our new horses, Veronica is officially ours! She has a quarter crack which is going to need shoes, and she desperately needs her teeth done, but the lady who was selling her agreed to give her to R for free because it's going to cost a lot to get her going again. I'm so glad. I love that big-eared redhead.

Today we're trying to put Lex out in the round pen again. Please cross your fingers. She's on an unusually high dose of Reserpine now, so that should do the trick, but of course I am terrified. At some point, the horse is going to have to go out again, and the longer we wait the worse it's going to be.