Christmas Present

I got my Christmas present today. 

First of all I was raised with thoroughbred race horses. At a young age I looked older and was able to go to the races, read a racing sheet and place bets. My parents had race horses. Now as a kid I didn't realize how nasty the racing world was. All I knew is that it was something that contained my passion, horses. As an adult I know the dirty secrets of the industry. It's not good! It's cruel and tears horses up all for money. I don't approve and I no longer go to races, watch races or bet on races. Well today I got my Christmas present. Navy Cat is freshly off the track. She is a thoroughbred, 4 years old and she is my first OTTB. She still needs more weight but a friend of mine did a fabulous job of putting weight on her so far. She still has a long way to go. I see potential and lots of it. Certain things make her act as if she is still on the track. Brings back memories. She loads in the trailer beautifully. She doesn't like tight places, reminds her of racing gates. She was mistreated by the racing trainer, taized to sprint out of the gates and who knows what else. She tends to bolt through gates. Today we worked on that. Only once did she bolt. The rest of the time she calmly walked through. Progress! She is sweet and comes to me for rubs hugs and love. I reassure her that no more bad will happen. She is a bit jumpy but time will settle that. Time will cure a lot of things. Her great Grandsire is Secretariat. Lacy also has some thoroughbred racing greats in her pedigree as well. I am very happy that I have the opportunity to have an off the track thoroughbred. It will take some time but we will work to reprogram her mindset. No more racing, no more abuse. And as usual, I have Josey keeping her company tonight. 

We got a great deal of stuff accomplished today. The little room in the barn where the bumble bees lived is no longer. It is cleaned out, the wall removed and it is now part of the stall which is now a huge foaling stall. Until we have foals though it is going to be Cats stall for bad weather. Her rain rot is almost gone. The barn is cleaned out. Of course all of the horses had to come in and see what we were doing. Pests!! 

Oh Diamond has a white spot on her leg!! Wes said it's her diamond. She never had it before. 

All of the horses surrounded the round pen to say hi to Cat. She wasn't bothered by it at all. She would not give anyone the time of day. Not even Trick. 

Wes worked with Bo today. Bo has a brand new outlook and attitude today. Wes worked with him for about 2 hours today and it worked wonders!! Wes will work with him daily after work. Wes did a great job. He has a way with horses. Bo is his colt and Pistol is mine. I love that I have someone that likes to work with the horses and be involved. 

Now I'm sore as hell. In a lot of pain. But all worth it. I feel renewed now that I had horse therapy. It was needed. Gonna be a long winter. It's amazing how a horse day can renew you. 

Today was horse day, tomorrow is house day. The weather was to nice today to do anything but play with the horses.