Welcome to the World Faith!

A friend I hadn’t seen in quite a while came to visit the other day.  She  greeted me perfunctorily and zipped out the back door to the horse pasture, stopping dead in her tracks when my old horses, Murphy and Dezi came up to beg.

              

“Well?  Where is she?” 

               

“Who? They’re both there.” 

               

 “Where’s the baby?”  

                

“Um. In Moorpark. Where she lives.”

My friend’s disappointment was palpable. For a minute I thought she was going to leave. She had come all the way from the Westside and she wanted to see a a baby horse, damn it!

I sort of understand.  Lucy’s foal Faith, (registered name:Way Out West) is five months old, cute as can be, and just naughty enough to be charming.  

Together with her BFF, a colt who is three weeks younger, they are the dynamic duo. Or the terrible twins.  It doesn’t matter; they are always entertaining. And the word is out.

Since Faith hit the ground, people from hip zip codes all over California have been making their way to Lucy’s field to oooh and ahhh.  Even folks who usually argue that they can’t possible travel all the way to the Valley because they haven’t had their shots,  or their passport has expired, have been happily meeting me in Ventura County.

I get it. Faith is that adorable. There simply isn’t a better way to waste time than by playing with foals or watching them run around.  If Faith and Lucy were home I’d get nothing done.

As it is, I barely accomplish anything.  When Faith was tiny I trekked out to see her daily. Now, I’ve cut back to three times a week. Okay, four days a week. The thing is, foals change really quickly. Every day something about her is different.

In the beginning Faith was all legs.  She was also incredibly shy.  As one of my friends noted, she was a wild animal. She hated being touched and was skittish. She kept hiding behind Lucy.

I was in a dither about getting her halter broke. I had visions of working with a full-grown horse with no ground manners and a nasty attitude.

I shouldn’t have worried. By four weeks she’d come up to me to get her throat rubbed if I sat on the ground.  At two and a half months the farm owner/foal whisperer Annaliese had Faith marching along in a halter like the show horse she is destined to be.

Now Faith and her BFF are such pests I never get to spend quality time with Lucy. That will come. Much too soon in fact. To Lucy’s relief, in about a month, Faith will be weaned.

She’s been eating hay, carrots and of course , peppermints for a while, but still tops that off with a slug from Lucy’s milk bar. I already miss the days when Faith was covered with milk from head to toe because she couldn’t quite figure out how those confusing teats worked.

Astonishingly, Lucy put up with it all.  Some of you remember Lucy from her show horse days. To say that she had strong opinions was to put it mildly. Lucy was the mare-iest mare I’ve had, and I’ve had a lot of mares.  She bit me more than once, and wouldn’t hesitate before kicking a horse in the arena.

But she took to motherhood.  After the initial shock wore off.  At first Lucy stared at Faith in shock as if thinking, “What the hell is that? And what am I supposed to do about it?’

Lucy figured it out soon enough and from then on it was smooth sailing. She became such a helicopter mom, and snarled at so many stable mates, that she and Faith were moved from the barn to pasture within a week just to keep the peace.

Originally Lucy wasn’t happy about having anyone near Faith. She tolerated me primarily because I came carrying carrots and peppermints.  Bribes if you will.

Now Lucy is grateful to anyone who distracts Faith for a minute. The babies are constantly all over their mothers – nipping and biting them and trying to get them to play. Playing is something that does not interest the mares. At all.

These days when I visit, if the babies aren’t passed out sleeping,

they're huddled together somewhere away from their moms.  Plotting. I actually had time to give Lucy an entire carrot before they swooped down from parts unknown to demand their carrot chunks and grab a gulp of milk from their tired moms.

I’m told that when the foals are yearlings they’ll go through a ugly, gawky stage. It is true that a lot of the resident yearlings and two-year-olds don’t have model good looks, but it’s hard to believe that my perfect little Faith will ever be ugly. 

Just in case, you might want to call me to get your visit in now, while they are still picture perfect.  Don’t worry. I know who you’re really coming to see.

The Circle of Life Blows

I never saw “The Lion King, ” but I’m all-too familiar with  its ‘circle of life’ theme.  It’s playing out in front of me, and only parts of it are any fun. Like Faith.

This spring my retired show horse Lucy gave birth to her eagerly anticipated and long awaited,(seriously – a horse’s gestation period is 11 months), foal.  From the moment I met her, a half-hour after her birth, I was smitten with Faith.

What’s not to love? From the tips of her four tiny hooves to the tops of her fluffy ears , so far she’s perfect.  Of course she is only four and a half months old.

It’s all been so easy!  Getting Lucy pregnant was a snap, and she was in labor for less than 30 minutes. Even the delivery was simple. Apparently this is truly beginner’s luck.

Immediately after her arrival, Lucy stared at Faith like she was an alien from another planet.  It also irritated Lucy that it took Faith few hours to figure out which end was the milk bar.  But after a few initial squeals of rage, Lucy took to motherhood.

Initially Lucy was a horrible helicopter mom and would only let a chosen few of us near Faith.  But after a more experienced mare came into the pasture with her foal, Lucy chilled out.

By now, almost five months in, Lucy is kind of over the whole thing.  Not me. Faith is about the most fun I’ve ever had.  

The foals are like big nosey puppies. Not only are they adorable but if something is within their reach they wedge their noses inside.  If they aren’t eating or passed out on the ground like dead things, they are busy chasing each other around the field.

Faith already appears to be a nice mover, and she and her playmate jump over all the logs in the field in surprisingly good form.  Maybe there is something to all this breeding stuff after all. Which would be nice since we picked her daddy for his ability.

Murray, my beloved Great Dane is closing in on far end of the circle of life. He’s my heart dog and we’ve been together, since he was just six weeks old.  Now at more than 11, Mur is considered ancient for a dog his size. He is winding down, and damn, I’m having trouble with it.

Like a lot of the elderly, Murray is set in his ways. He has rules and he’s serious about them.

Ever since he was young, Mur has been very particular about his toys.  The only stuffed animals he plays with are what I call his ‘Jew Bears:’ teddies outfitted with Yarmulkes and a Star of David on their chests. Really.  He has bunches of other stuffed toys but carries only his Jew Bear (or its exact replacement; I buy them in bulk during Hanukah) around with him where ever he goes. 

He also felt that way about a tennis ball -sized rubber toy with pointy tips all over. It was his favorite and just the right size to get jammed in a Great Dane’s throat.  Which it did. He started gasping and was turning blue as we pulled into the vet’s office. I’m not sure how he did it, but Dr. Steve somehow performed the Heimlich maneuver on him and the ball popped out.

That wasn’t Murray’s only dabble with the Grim Reaper.  He also developed bloat, an acute condition where the dog’s stomach torques and flips. It’s deadly if not treated almost immediately.

Luckily I was home and lived close to an emergency vet, because it happened as all expensive emergencies do—after hours on Saturday night.  Three weeks and one very expensive operation and Murray was back to running agility.

That’s right. Agility. Murray was a star in the agility ring. All 140 pounds of him. I started running agility with him because I wanted to sharpen his obedience behaviors and was sick of regular classes. Much to everyone’s surprise he loved it.

Great Danes are unusual in agility, and lots of people would make snarky comments when we entered the ring. They weren’t laughing as we left..

He’s always been a light eater and skips eating for a day or so, but now it happens more often. Twice a day I hand feed him pain pills in a spoonful of peanut butter. His hips are shot and some mornings he can’t climb the two steps to my front door. More and more his back legs slip and splay and I have to lift him up.

Murray isn’t perfect; he doesn’t like strange dogs and most men. He snorts, farts and kicks in his sleep  But none of that matters. He’s been my best friend and companion for over a decade and I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to cope without him.

I guess I’m going to find out soon.

Broken and Depressed. Literally.

I have a confession: I am a terrible patient.  For one thing, I am not patient at all. I bitch and complain about colds, sore throats and the flu. I tend to stomp like a brat while whining about how unfair it all is. I realize this behavior is a bore, so I tend to keep to myself when I’m sick.

Right now I’m injured. Naturally, I am pissed. Livid. Even worse, it’s going to take all summer before I'm back to normal.

Last week I was on my way to Santa Barbara for a horse show, so I stopped to see Lucy and her baby, Faith. I only do this, oh, about four times a week.

As usual, armed with a five pound bag of carrots, I ducked under the electric fence and hollered for Lucy and Faith. Faith and her BFF immediately ran towards me with their moms ambling behind them.

I poured a bunch of carrots on the ground in two piles so Lucy and her gal pal wouldn’t bicker, and was breaking up bits to give to the foals, when a mare from the adjoining field came over to beg for a treat. Oops.

Until motherhood’s hormones kicked in, Lucy had a legendary temper. She ruled fields, arenas and wash racks with just a nasty look. That mare might have been in completely other field, but according to Lucy, she was too damn close. Not to Faith, Lucy is kind of sick of her, but to Lucy’s carrots.

In a flash, Lucy wheeled her butt around to snarl at the mare and smacked me into the electric fence.  As I hit the dirt, she stomped on my foot, squishing it as she whirled away.  Double oops.

Next thing I knew, I was on the ground getting shocked by the fence and looking up into the absolutely thrilled faces of the babies. They were so sure I was laying there in order to play with them, they could barely contain themselves. My screams of pain did confuse them a little.

With some effort, I shooed them away, grabbed Lucy’s front leg and used it to shimmy myself upright.  If she thought it was odd, she didn’t react. In her mind it was probably no weirder than some of the other stuff I’d asked her to do over the last 11 years.  

Standing wasn’t one of my better ideas.  My foot burned and the pasture swirled in circles, so I hobbled to the car to think.

This is what I came up with:  I better hit the road. I was late for my riding lesson at the show.  On to Santa Barbara.

Once at the show I took off my sneaker and looked at my foot. It looked normal-ish so I shoved it in a riding boot and rode.  It ached but not too badly.  As long as I could get my boot on in the morning, I was going to compete.

That night I stayed home and kept my foot iced and elevated. It was starting to turn a fascinating shade of purple and black.

I sussed out a nearby urgent care clinic for the next day. After I competed.

Wes looked gorgeous the next morning and I was dying to show. So I sucked it up and shoved my boot on. After a few minutes I could hardly feel my foot at all.

When my classes were over (I was pretty terrible, but I made it around), I headed for the urgent care.

I don’t recommend needing urgent care anywhere, but if you do, go to Santa Barbara.  In well under an hour, a pleasant doctor was examining my X-rays.

Even I could spot the break in my foot..  The doctor sent me away with a prescription, an ace bandage and instructions to see my doctor when I got home. He didn’t specifically tell me I couldn’t ride.

So the next morning I squeezed back into my boot (it was a lot more swollen and had a distinct resemblance Fred Flintstone’s foot) and hopped back on Wes to try and improve on the previous day’s horrible performance.

After an hour I conceded that it wasn’t meant to be.
I grudgingly dismounted.

I saw my new orthopedic doctor the other day. She outfitted me in a nightmare version of an orthopedic Birkenstock with orders to wear it for the next four to six weeks.

She did say I could ride. As long as I don’t use stirrups.

I’m still furious, but can’t even stomp around in a snit.  It hurts too much. Which hasn't stopped me from fuming to anyone who will listen.

Who Is That Blob in the Mirror? Oh No! It's Me!

A while ago I noticed that my clothes were getting smaller.  Things that had fit me only months before, were tight. While the magical thinker in me wanted to blame my new washing machine, (it must be shrinking all my clothing as part of its water saving feature!), my right brain couldn’t fight the reality: I was getting fat.

Now I’ve never exactly been a twig, but I never had a roll of flab around my middle. Until now.

It isn’t all my fault. I’ve reached that wonderful age where even though I’m neither eating more or exercising less, pounds glob on to my once -fit frame.

Also, and this is a biggie, I went back to school last fall, so instead of walking the dogs three miles a day every day, it has been more like three days a week.  You’d think when I noticed the dogs were getting a bit tubby and put them on a diet, I might have done the same for myself. But if you believe that you don’t understand denial. I, on the other hand,  am the Queen of Denial.

Breaking  through denial isn’t easy. It takes something big. We believers need a shove, not a nudge.

Mine came from in the form of an invitation. My perfectly nice nephew and his lovely girlfriend selfishly decided to get married.  In August.  In New England.

Perhaps they foolishly thought this was about them, but all I could think of was me. Not only would there be herds of people attending who I hadn’t laid eyes on in years, but there would be photographic evidence.  And sleeveless dresses. The horror!

After I stopped screaming, I started planning. I got a Fitbit – I have a few friends who had become quite svelte after adhering to the 10,000 step a day plan.  It fit easily into my schedule and like a Pavlovian dog, I enjoyed the little buzz it made when I hit the goal. 

Naturally there was a problem. Most days I was already walking more than 10,000 steps and I kept breaking the darn things. After three replacements failed, the company and I agreed to part.

By this time it was June.  School was ending and I had a little more spare time.  Unfortunately for the dogs, summer in the San Fernando Valley is hot. Steaming hot. By the time I get home from riding in the mornings, it’s too hellish to walk on the streets. Unless I want to burn their paws. Which I don’t.

I already started going back to flow yoga a couple of times a week, and that was making me feel better, but I wasn’t losing any noticeable weight.  The clock was ticking and I needed to get serious. So I reached out to a young, fit, friend who had recently finished the certification and classes to become a fitness trainer.

She invited me over to her place for the first session. Like heroin, the first time was free.  Also like drugs, it also made me feel pretty good.

During that assessment she kept telling me I was in better shape than I look.  Apparently under my rolls of fat lurk abs of steel. Or at least aluminum.

I figured I’d give it a chance for a few months. I had nothing to lose but fat.

Today was my fourth session. The exercises aren’t so easy anymore.  Apparently, the whole point of training is to keep pushing yourself, not to get good at it. If it gets comfortable, you add weight and start all over.

This completely goes against my need for near-instant gratification. My ideal plan is to get better at things and eventually win. It’s the destination, not the journey. Naturally, I’m a pretty bad yogi.

Anyway, today I managed to get through all of the exercises, even with some weights.  ‘Course by the time we were done, my arms were so tired I wasn’t sure I’d be able to shift my car out of park and drive home. Note to self:  next time don’t take the vehicle with manual transmission.

By the time I did get home it became obvious that if I wanted to get anything done I had to rest my arms on the table or they shook too much to type. Aspirin is my new best friend.

After only two weeks, I haven’t seen a change yet, but everyone assures me I will. Eventually.

I don’t expect to have a bangin’ bikini bod, but I would like to be able to wear a sleeveless dress to the wedding and not gross myself out. Or at least fit into my old clothes again.

Spring Slams into Seven Hills Farm West

                Spring came early this year to Seven Hills Farm West. Really early.

    It actually started on Christmas with the arrival of Tweedy Bird. After a lifetime of owning canaries, one of my girls actually hatched an egg.  This my not sound a big deal –  there are a million canaries out there and they all began as eggs - but it came as a huge, and pleasant, shock to me. A miracle actually.

               

               Apparently a lot of people agreed with me. Ever the proud bird god-mother, I posted near-daily pictures of Tweedy’s progress on Facebook and Instagram, and soon found s/he (I have no idea if Tweedy is a female or a male) had many more followers than I did.  They were also more rabid. If I didn’t post photos for a day or so, well, people complained.

                

             What amazed everyone was just how fast Tweedy went from a horrible bug-like creature to an actual bird. By the time he was four weeks old, Tweedy was hopping around eating real food and had grown actual feathers. Eight weeks later he was back in the flight cage with his parents.  He looks nothing like his mom, but is a carbon copy of his dad. Nature is pretty amazing.  Really astounding.

              

             It’s only gotten better. 

February 28th was monumental. Not only was there a driving rainstorm, which is enough to bring out the happy dance in drought-stricken Los Angeles, but  after an anxious 10 months of waiting, Lucy decided to deliver her foal.

I’d been on baby-watch for a week, since the experts told me she was showing all the signs.  Naturally, I was sleeping literally with my phone on my pillow, since horses tend to deliver between 10 pm and 4am in the morning.  For two weeks there was nothing. Crickets.

Then at 10:30 on Saturday night, the vet office called to tell me to be ready to come out, that Lucy was looking ready. They weren’t kidding. Ten minutes later they called back to say she was in labor.  Naturally I left immediately.  I’m not even sure I locked the door. In fact I’m pretty positive I didn’t. I do know that I broke the speed limit driving to the clinic.

By the time I got there, a half-hour later, after a mere nine minute labor, which has made her the envy of all my friends,  Lucy was standing around, looking dazed. On the ground was a tiny, perfect, filly. The doctor was still drying her off as I walked in the stall.

Lucy had done a stellar job but she was staring at the lump on the ground like it was an alien. Which it probably was to her. Lucy’s a maiden mare and probably had no idea what had just happened.  Eventually she sighed and lay down next to the baby and nuzzled it, which made for some awfully touching photos.  

Not surprisingly, I have put the paparazzi to shame. I have taken roughly a million photos. It isn’t enough.

When Lucy got up, the doctor untangled the baby’s legs, which is pretty much all there was of her, and stood her up. She promptly collapsed, but after about a half hour managed to do it on her own.  Almost immediately she was zooming around the stall. I  believe it’s because she didn’t know what else to do with her legs except run. When she stopped running, she wobbled.

Then it was time to try to nurse. She stuck her nose everywhere except where the milk was. And every time she touched Lucy, Lucy would scream. Eventually the vets milked Lucy’s colostrum and tube fed it to the baby. They fed the baby that way every hour until about 4am, when the filly finally got the hang of eating on her own.  Apparently there is actually a syndrome called ‘dummy foals’ because, well they are. Who knew?

Thankfully it’s been off to the races ever since.  The baby has grown into a beauty, and I say that not just because she’s mine. Well, maybe I’m a little biased, but everyone seems to agree with me.

                

            She has a star in the shape of California on her face, and three white socks. She’s going to be bay, like both Lucy and her father, and is already pretty huge.  At a month, she’s no longer gawky, but is still all legs. She looks like an equine giraffe.

                

            She’s quite shy, but will let me play with her and, like a toddler is into everything.  Like her mama, knows exactly what she wants and more typically, what she doesn’t.  Like her itty bitty halter. She doesn’t appreciate that at all and makes it known. For a while I seriously considered calling her Dontwanna, but that seemed like tempting fate.

Instead, her registered name will be Way Out West.  The “West” comes from her father, Westporte. Her barn name, Faith, comes from Lucy, whose show name is Blind Faith.

Already she’s a little mini-me of Lucy.  If Lucy comes for a mint, so does Faith. Of course Faith doesn’t quite know what to do with them yet but she still wants one. 

Then there’s the fly masks. The flies have also come early this year, so Faith has been outfitted with a tiny fly mask which in a bit of serendipity matches Lucy’s. Together they look like they’re very stylish equine bank robbers.

                

            Obviously I’m pretty smitten. People tell me that babies go through a horrible ugly stage when they’re yearlings, but I can’t accept that. Faith is going to always be gorgeous.  No pressure.

                

            It’s a few years down the line before she can be ridden, and thankfully I’m not going to be the first person to do that – which is good for both of our sakes.  But I figure I’ll be on her in about five years.

               

         

 I can’t wait!

Mom's Visiting: Hide the Contraband!

         

 My Mother is coming for a visit. A long one. I like my Mom a lot, so there’s no problem there. But it does take a bit to prepare for her arrival.

Back in the day, that meant that shortly before she landed, I'd leap into a wild flurry of housecleaning.  That mostly involved stuffing things in drawers, vacuuming the floors and stashing various articles of drug paraphernalia. I’d usually miss something: rolling papers, a mini-bong, an empty bindle or two. No matter, she’d either not notice, or pretend she didn’t see while I shoved whatever it was into my underwear drawer.

Of course was that year she arrived stood on the patio of my first floor duplex and remarked on just how healthy my landlord’s pot plants were. She knew full well exactly what they were.  So much for that.

Things are a lot different now.  I don’t need to hide the pot ephemera – it’s virtually legal in Los Angeles, and I don’t smoke much anymore.

 I do still go into a frenzy of house cleaning before her visits. Which is weird if I think about it: mom’s a worse housekeeper than I am. Still, one likes to keep up the illusion.

But in addition to clean floors and sheets, now I have a few more things on my list.  Make no mistake: aging changes everything. Last year I had the plumber install grab bars in the bathroom. This year I measured the doorways to make sure her walker would fit.  I also located the nearest CVS Pharmacy so she could get her prescriptions here instead of schlepping them with her.

I ended up renting a car for the duration of her trip. I actually own two vehicles, but neither is suitable for mom any longer. The BMW is a low-slung two-seater which she can easily get into, but not out of. The SUV is too tall for her to climb into and she objects to being pushed into the passenger seat like a bag of grain. We’ve tried it a few times in the past and she dissolves into a fit of laughter, which makes it even harder to shove her in.  

A different vehicle is less amusing, but more appropriate.  So a rental car it is.

Shopping for anything is a chore to me but food shopping is torture. I look around at all those ingredients and am constantly amazed that people can throw them together and make actual meals. I rarely even try to cook.  I just don’t have that gene. Neither does Mom.

But I know Mom can’t survive on my diet of vegetarian junk food. So I took one for the team. I forced myself to go to Ralph’s and stocked up on the basics: bread, eggs, milk and coffee. I also loaded up on a few things I never have in the house: like candy. And really good Scotch.  Personally, I’m a bourbon drinker, but to each her own.

Part of the reason Mom is visiting is to get out of the winter weather. She’s coming from New England- Massachusetts - which has had a particularly awful January and February. It’s been below zero for weeks and has had a record amount of snowfall.  Naturally that meant that the day before she was due to travel, the snow came dumping down.

This created a certain amount of tension. Would the roads be plowed? Would her flight be cancelled? They were and it wasn’t.

She arrived today and is here for three weeks. The weather is going to be perfect, and I think she has a few PLANS. Three weeks sounds like a lot of time to do stuff.  It isn’t.

  

For one thing, I’m in school, and while class only takes two nights a week, I also have a writing group that meets on Thursday, and most of my days are spent working and writing.

Another problem is the Mom factor. Even in her youth she wasn’t a fast mover. Getting her up and going in the morning was always an issue. It’s become more so as she’s aged.

Also, Mom isn’t comfortable sitting in a car for hours on end any more. So the trips of the past - Joshua Tree, Santa Barbara and Hearst Castle - aren’t going to happen this time. It looks like we’ll probably go to the Getty, Descanso Gardens and maybe the Huntington.

Hell, we’ll be lucky if we do anything. My mare is due to give birth in the middle of Mom’s trip, and if that happens we’ll be visiting her and the baby every day. I mean, she wouldn’t want to do anything else, would she? Actually, I think she’ll settle for just seeing the sun almost every day. That the temperature is going to be the 80s is just a plus.

                

We'll Never Be Royal...Except for Lucy

I was never one of those girls who wanted to be a princess. I hated the clothing, wasn’t into the headgear and found the princes sorely lacking.

               

             But I have always referred to my show horse, Lucy (Blind Faith), as the Princess. She seemed to have all of the accouterments:  she’s beautiful, exceptionally talented and is a little bitchy, er, mare-ish.

                

          Well, I’ve just discovered that she actually is a kind of royalty, which makes me, by virtue of the fact that I pay her bills, royalty too. Okay, I’m the lady in waiting. Staff, as it were.

                

         See, last year after her second leg injury, I retired Lucy. She was never going to heal enough to jump anymore and I didn’t want to risk her being hurt any more than she already was.

The plan was that she would join the other two ancient geezers who live in my backyard and serve as friendly lawn ornaments. That was the plan.

                

        Except she wasn’t a geezer. At 16 she wasn’t exactly a spring chicken, but she wasn’t that old. Not to mention that the reality was that I just wasn’t ready.

                

        We’d been together for 11 years. I bought her sight unseen. (Hence her show name : Blind Faith. That and my fondness for the band.) When she arrived, I went up and down the barn aisle searching for my new horse. Except I’d never seen her and didn’t know what she looked like. Finally a groom took pity on me and introduced us. 

                

         Lucy had been imported from the Netherlands for someone who had changed her mind. So I bought Lucy as soon as she cleared quarantine. She probably didn’t understand English, but she picked up on the word ‘treat’ almost immediately. 

For the first few months in Los Angeles, she screamed incessantly. Her blabbermouth ways reminded me of the “Peanuts” comic strip, so her barn name became Lucy Van Pelt, Lucy for short.

For the first five months only my trainer rode her – she was that green. When I finally was allowed to get on, she bucked me off and I bruised three ribs.  She had colic surgery once and almost died. When she was recovering I threw my arms around her neck to hug her. She bit me in the stomach.  Hard. That’s just the kind of relationship we have.

I believe she does care about me. Not only am I the only one she bites, (you only chomp the one you love) but she always  she whinnies when she sees me, even if it’s only been a few minutes. And God knows she took care of me when I rode her. 

Over the years, Lucy developed into a much more talented horse than I deserved, and we became a great team.  After a while, when I screwed up she’d ignore it and take over.  We won a lot over the years mostly because she was that good.

So, last year when the vet said she was done, I made a purely emotional, probably stupid decision: I decided to breed her.  This was absolutely not a good financial decision. Warmbloods can’t even be ridden until they are three, so there’s the cost of raising the baby. Then training it. The bottom line is that the foal will probably be five before I can ride it. Then I have to pray it has some talent.  

It costs a lot less to save that money and buy a trained, proven horse. But this was about sentiment, not smarts. 

So my trainer and I looked through stallion listings. Some people watch porn, others look at clothing. I looked at horses. Hundreds of them. It had to be big, a good mover, a great jumper with a terrific brain and nice hind end. It was like going through Tinder.

Eventually we found the perfect match in Canada. Geographic proximity didn’t matter: the closest Lucy would be to her baby daddy was a doctor holding the veterinary equivalent of a turkey baster.

Thank goodness she’s had a textbook pregnancy.  Sort of.  She originally conceived twins.  Twin horses rarely survive or are unhealthy so one had to be aborted.  Again, the procedure was textbook.

Last week, 10 months in,  I brought her out to the farm where she’ll stay until the baby is weaned. The baby will be there until he’s (please make it a colt!) ready to be trained at three.

The lady who runs the place is a connoisseur of Dutch Warmbloods, and asked about Lucy's lineage. While I know a lot about Throughbred bloodlines I know nothing about Warmbloods, so I happily dug out Lucy’s passport and sent along the information figuring that she was nothing special. Wrong.

The lady was godsmacked.  Apparently Lucy’s family is seriously fancy. Important even. It seems that for the last 11 years Lucy has been trying to tell me she was actual royalty, and I was ignoring the signs. Oops.

Now that I know, I guess I should start bringing her organic carrots. And maybe a bling-y tiara.