May 17- and then life went on

 May 17- and then life went on

 I never got a call back from the broker about the 6 OTTB horses in Ohio. I feel like I did everything I could short of flying out there and going door-to-door. And I guess I'm still going to feel guilty for a while. It's hard to just move on when there's no closure, but that is a lesson I certainly need. I feel saddest when a victim's body is never found, when that final certainty and goodbye isn't possible. Anyway, it's possible that the 6 horses were bought by a trainer who is working with them now and in a few months or a year they will all reappear healthy and costing a ton of money as trained jumpers or dressage horses. But it's more much likely they went straight to Canada and were butchered within 48 hours.

Joy or no joy, the world is still beautiful. That's what I decided walking my dog yesterday. We watched the Paint foals play in the green grass and nap with their heads on the prairie dog mounds while we hiked.

I had a good riding lesson with Reggae. I was pretty stiff- sometimes half my lesson is just me getting my hips and shoulders to loosen up. I'd better keep doing the morning Tai Chi, leaving that off has been a mistake.
Reggae is odd to ride in some ways, once he decides to change gaits it takes a full second for him to complete the change. So once I can feel him starting to try to canter, I try to give the release. But it's taken weeks to get the feel of it and trust that he will continue to accelerate into the trot or canter without maintenance of pressure. I also discovered that Reggae has done the reining exercise of canter down the long side of the arena, stop, turn and canter back. I cantered down, stopped and turned back, and he struck right off into the canter off my leg pressure for the turn! I was pretty impressed, he came out very balanced and just cantered off easily. He does canter better from a back-up, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Put that on the list of things to do more of. He is already getting stronger in his back.

I looked at a ton of photos and did a little research on a few horses but I'm just not inspired. G hinted that cheap horses in other states might end up being good bargains even after shipping. It looks like CANTER's Southern California or Arizona horses might be worth checking out.

Arapahoe Park's meet starts Memorial Day so soon there should be racehorses for sale here. CANTER Colorado has just started a retraining program and they have one horse. Maybe I can be their first buyer.