We also had a heavy loss to our little family, my Matisse. I'm glad she was able to play in the snow one more time before we had to suddenly say goodbye a week later.
I was there when she was born and she has been with me since before kids, marriage, horses, any of it. She and I traveled the southeast together, won everything we could, and she helped me raise my babies when it was time for that too. Matisse was amazing and her passing has left a huge hole in my heart I've been struggling to deal with. Her constant presence at my side in the house is painfully missed. Today is the first time I got back in the saddle since the snowfall two weeks ago.
The boys help me heal in a way only they can.
As death has a way of prompting, I spent an excessive amount of time wondering if I'm doing it all okay. Am I giving enough of myself to the humans and animals I love? Am I doing enough? Am I setting myself up for some future regret? AM I DOING ENOUGH?
I recently read "Saving Baby" by Jo Ann Normile. Saving Baby has the subtitle; "How One Woman's Love For a Racehorse Led Her To Redemption". It sounded right up my alley. I wanted to help racehorses maybe the book contained things that would help me on my journey.
Boy was I right about it steering my journey, but in all the wrong ways. First you should know that there is not a positive thing said about racing in the entire read. I get it, she was at a lower end track and conditions were bad. I appreciate her honesty. That being said though, she described stall as jail. She listed things that most trainers do, with no explanation as to why they are doing it (most cases to protect the horse). It was all the awful and terrible and believe me, there is plenty of it.
Yes, racetracks can have terrible stories. Bad trainers. Bad owners. Shady business. It's money and animals and the two rarely mix without there being a morally loose screw ruining it for those that genuinely care. You will find the largest heap of this at the lower end tracks.
There are also trainers who care and do the right thing by their horses.
It's a slippery slope, like dog breeding. Good dog breeders have contracts that require dogs come back to them if ever unwanted, even microchipping the puppies before they leave. They screen for health issues before breeding. They take the greatest care in starting puppies right and working to find the exact right home for each puppy (most spoken for before they are even born) and only breed in an effort to make better dogs or keep a great line of healthy dogs going. Then you have puppy mills and backyard breeders who breed whatever, whenever, who fill the shelters with unwanted dogs. Mass public blames every breeder for killing of shelter dogs, when in reality a great breeder's puppy would never end up there.
So too is horse racing. A good trainer's horse would likely never see the suffering that is portrayed over and over in the book as happening to "all racehorses". Is there a problem? Yes. A lot of them. Should all owners/trainers/breeders be condemned with a broad stroke? No.
The slaughter of horses is gone into multiple times in the book, something she plays off for the first half of the book that she didn't understand was ever taking place, then revisits in vivid detail over and over. If you don't know how a horse is slaughtered, you should before you decide your stance on the slaughter issue. Most horse people do know and I tried to skip over each part that went into it.
Her own horse, her first racehorse, Baby, dies. Shattering his leg on the badly maintained track mid-race. Being put down, to my remembering horror, just like Lake was here at my farm.
She spends decades trying to "save Baby" (aka redemption) by forming CANTER. She helps hundreds upon hundreds of racehorses. She takes credit for being the first to push a big recycled racehorse movement in the sport horse world. Only Jo Ann never finds satisfaction in it, always seeing Baby in that one horse she couldn't save. Crying over every horse that a trainer wouldn't release to her even though she took twelve away from the track that day.
Taking a years-overdue vacation with her husband and spending it still saving horses, all night, all day. Late to her daughter's own bridal gown fitting. There were always more and "what if that one horse was just like Baby and I didn't make the time to save him".
It was never enough. It was painful. Over and over again. Her family relationships suffered. Her own personal horses never saw her and she felt the overwhelming regret of it when it was their time to pass. In helping hundreds she found no solace. I tossed the book in the trash as soon as I was finished with it. It was a plea for help with no end and I was left feeling raw and exposed to a problem I had no hope of solving.
Saying goodbye to my best little furry friend last week rammed this home to me. The years I managed her around the kids were the hardest to reconcile in my head. She was so great with them and I was just busy, no extras for her for all that time. The times I did spend with her, the adventures we had together, that is what eases my heart each day and I wish for more.
I've always said "one day" or "if we won the lottery" I would take in racehorses, desperate to feel like I'm helping in some bigger picture than just myself. I don't think I realized I am. I have two in my pasture right now. They have a great life because of me and the time I spend with them is all I have and it's precious. Having time to slowly groom Bandon because he likes to feel like a colt who has a mother to groom him, playing keep away with Czech, and teaching Spotlight new tricks to show the kids would be lost as I networked and worried about horses out of my control striving for more and more lives saved.
Maybe saving my racehorses, is enough.
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