Finding Thanksgiving

The emotional support that came in the wake of Lake's passing is more than I could ever hope for. I wish I could say it made it all a little easier, made it all heal a little faster. At the least it made me feel like I wasn't alone through it.

I'm shell shocked at how heavy his absence is felt here. Reason says that I only had the horse 14 days. Reason and my heart have been in conflict since I was a little girl though.

The empty stall stares at me each and every time I walked past it. There are dozens more horses in similar circumstance as Lake was, looking for their own new start. Unfortunately, this is the end of the meet season for tracks like Churchill Downs and horses still racing have been shipped south. Horses that are done at the track have been sent to rescues or to places I don't want to think about if the owners didn't care.

Those horses keep me up at night. They are the injured horses who may make full or at least partial recoveries given time and special care.

Just before Thanksgiving I had the great gift of a trail ride on a borrowed mount. He was a sturdy chestnut bald-faced QH and we had a lot of fun cantering through the woods of the nearby battlefields. Cindy was telling me on the ride about all of the trail opportunities nearby, moving here I stumbled into a prime area for waterfalls, mountains, and open spaces to ride.

The next day I took Whisper out for a ride in my arena. It was one of her difficult days and I left the barn thinking to myself that it was really a shame that I did love Thoroughbreds so much, and want to help a rescue so much, because having a trail savvy horse who wasn't such a challenge all the time would be a nice change. Riding is only part of the picture though and I wasn't willing to sacrifice what I loved living and working with for what I enjoyed riding.

Later that evening Chris and I had another long discussion about what we wanted to do with the empty space and we agreed that whatever it was, would be assumed a resident (not a foster) until proven otherwise. We agreed that though they were plentiful and in-need, a leg injury wasn't something I could take right now without worrying 24/7 about something going horribly wrong after what we had just been through.

There were also options like the in-between centers that take horses to their facilities from the track and list them to adopt. Basically what I was looking at doing when this all started, only they operate on a larger scale. They have assorted injuries, recovered horses, young horses, and lots of mares.

I scanned through about 60 horse adoption listings until I saw that one organization had a horse in need of a home listed that caught my attention who came off track early September. There's still a lot to ask and find out about him but I've started application processes to see what's around that corner.

It may be that there's a horse straight off-track next year that needs us. It may be that another organization has the "just right" horse to join us here. The only sure thing is that there's lots out there, a sad fact.

I'm ready to open up and see, give a horse a home and us a new start.

Meanwhile I'll enjoy playing with my big nutty mare and her spunky little friend. Spotlight has worked his way into our family just perfectly. His claim to fame, besides being great with all the kids, is his ability to throw his feed pan and my wheelbarrow at will.