Past, Present and Our Futures

I'm still blown away by the Sebright/C Bright and me connection. As a friend on facebook said it's very Jungian Synchronicity.


But it's time to get back to basics on this blog. It's about a couple horses, their histories and our futures. The past few days I had a little of all that with them.


Friday I drove to Chicago and Arlington Park for the Arlington Million. I went to the track early to catch the workouts and to see my friends that were there on the backside. First of all, Arlington is absolutely gorgeous. It is picture perfect and pristine. I highly recommend you visit if you haven't been there already. I watched some of the workouts at the track and saw the international horses working on the main track. There was a lot of french being spoken which really added to the international flavor for the day. After a little while I headed over to the backside to see my friends from Graham Motion's barn with their horses that shipped in and to visit with the Liane Davis Racing Stables.

Just guess who was the first horse I saw when I walked over to Liane's barn... Canoodler! I thought he had been sold but evidently he was not. Liane still trying to sell him so if anyone has a good lead on someone looking for a cute, sweet, nice moving 5 yr old Broken Vow gelding, I've got one for them. The owner has no apparent plans to race him and he will probably be heading over to Liane's farm while they continue to try to sell him. He's in good hands! Isn't he cute:

The rest of the day was spent shooting photos at the races which was great fun.

This shot is my favorite.

I was very excited for Ramon Dominguez and Gio Ponti. Ramon is a great guy AND he used to ride Hola C Bright when he was raced at Delaware Park. I just love knowing that kind of history about my horse.

Which brings me to Hola and his new home. He's lost a little bit of weight shipping over here so we are working on putting weight back on him which he is starting to do. Huge relief for me! He's still a little wary of things and unfortunately, there is a lot of maintenance going on around the barn which has all the horses a little spookier than usual. Things such as paint equipment and powerwashing hoses at the end of the aisle which is usually clear. So he's taking in a lot and he's doing a great job settling down and adjusting even when the other horses get a little on edge. Kudos to him!

I rode Toby this week in my lesson. Besides the fact that he broke a set of cross ties because he inexplicably decided that sponges will eat him when used to sponge him off, he's been great. I had a visitor from the Alex Brown Racing Website,which I help moderate, come in to see us. Our visitor, JudyPA, was in the area on vacation so she came out, met the boys and watched my lesson with Betsy. Toby was good but we both needed a refresher and to get his hind end engaged. He's such a long bodied horse that he needs me to help him get his front and hind ends coordinated. Needless to say, it was a lot of work and Betsy was great in teaching me how to do it. Most of it had to do with me learning to drive with his hind end and think of his front end as a hood ornament. I thought he made a good Mack Truck bulldog by the end of the lesson. Toby's future as a dressage horse is really coming along. I'm so proud of him!

Next week my lesson will be with Hola. I am alternating horses each week for now.

I'm a lucky person to have my horses, to have the opportunity to see pieces of their history in action and to have them as we help each other grow into our futures.