Thursday, June 7, 2012

All Quiet on the Pony-Shopping Front

The past few weeks have been going by with nothing too exciting on the pony-shopping front.

I looked at what felt like a million horses at Elaine Schott's farm in Versailles a few weeks back. They were lovely horses, but they just weren't what I'm looking for. On Monday, I travelled north to the Hoosier state to look at 5 off the track guys (and gal). One freshly retired gelding was pretty nice, but didn't knock my socks off when I hopped on. I had a blast on the mare, but she's not as leggy as I'd like. She made me re-evaluate and perhaps start thinking that even 16 hands is too short, so now I'm really thinking 16.2 or taller. For every 10 horses for sale, I think I can find 1 or 2 that fit what I want, but nothing has really clicked. I keep telling myself I'll know it when I feel it, but some days I wonder about that (and really, really hope it's true).

One of the guys I saw Monday

They had babies at one of the farms!

In the meantime, I fell in love with the ad for a CANTER horse in Ohio. I was dying to go look at him because everything about him sounded wonderful (and it didn't hurt that he was just as tall, dark, and drop-dead-handsome as Will). It turns out that he has osselets in his ankle and can't jump, so that was a huge bummer. But the contact person was very friendly and helpful and was happy to give me some good leads.

So now my focus turns to the Buckeye state, where I'm planning on going in 2 weeks to look at a line-up of horses. I feel like there's a time-bomb ticking underneath me to make a decision on my #1 horse, but I just have to have something nice to compare him to- I don't want to be backed into a corner for fear of losing out, and then be sorely disappointed when he's not everything I want and more.

I've also been approved for adoption at the Secretariat Center, so I'm going to make an appointment soon to check out a filly they have. I'm crossing my fingers that one goes well, since when I thought she was amazing when I saw her at Rolex. My CANTER MI adoption is pending, but there's a horse that they just got in who sounds like someone I'd enjoy.

In other news, little Riley has been plugging along. It seems as though he can't decide when, or if, his extended vacation should end. He was sound right before Maydaze and going to watch all the horses really made me hopeful. I started making plans in my head for what we'd do once he got going again. He saw the chiropractor on Memorial Day and was going to be scheduled for one last lameness exam this week to get the go-ahead for full work. So of course when I tried to ride him on Tuesday, he was terribly lame. This time the vet thinks it's just a strained muscle, so with all luck that's it (and we've finally gotten to the bottom of all his problems). We had a little talk about one more big vet bill and he can have a year or two off if he'd like, and I think that might of knocked some sense into him because he's been sound all this week.

Some days I think Riley gets a kick out of making me worried. His leg decided to swell up, so after I wrapped it, John and I decided to sign his "cast". 

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