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Oh, the excitement! We already had a boarding barn picked out, one of several others on 800 acres of gorgeous trails in hunt country. Same 800 acres we'd been renting horses on for a year (see picture crossing the creek on the home page). This would be great! One could ride our horse, and the other two rent a horse. Well, I get ahead of the story.
Now that the price was in our range and the ailments of the horse were within our abilities to deal with (said the vet, just don't ride her too hard and long or jump her more than 3 1/2 feet, as if any of us would), we were hyped up to make the deal. Of course, Hap and Lisa hadn't even seen the horse yet, so there were a few details hanging.
Out we went, all in one car, jabbering and giggling all the way. We all had cameras, to record the historic event should it work out.
And what was the first shot taken? Why, Lisa, sentimental (or just weird?) to a fault, took one of our first sight of what may have been "our" horse's manure pile. To this day, I have no idea who crapped there, but am happy to think it was our horse. We rounded the corner of the barn and entered to see Bel Chance in cross ties, getting brushed and polished for us. She stood still and simply moved her kind eyes from one to the other of us with mild curiosity. Those big brown eyes won Hap and Lisa over immediately. Hap had a brush in hand in no time, helping out, while Lisa stroked the mare's soft muzzle. The trainer saddled her up, and out we went to see her in action. I noticed she'd had her feet trimmed, thank goodness. First, she was lounged for a bit. She did fine with this.
I asked the trainer to lounge her over a little cross rail, just to see what she'd do. "Oh, I've never had her over anything," she said, but she went ahead anyway. By golly, she folded her front legs like a pro! I really think that any action short of bucking or rearing would have pleased us all at this point. But, the fact was, she stood still for mounting, set off at a lady like walk, and was entirely well mannered the whole time, though obviously a little green. The trainer rode her in huge circles out in a field, walking, then trotting at a fairly rapid pace but evenly, and then cantering quietly. She wasn't collected, but she did have a nice way of reaching under herself, and overtracked at a walk very nicely. Nothing pokey about her, but no wild eyed antics either. She got her leads most of the time, and did come back to a nicer trot now and then. Mostly she was long and low, just like a race horse. Time for me to try.
No problems, except I dropped my stirrups at the canter once. The mare slowed down and stopped for me. !! How polite. Hey, I was sold. Heck, we were all sold. We took her back to the barn, rubbed her down, and put her in her stall. We stood around talking with the trainer for a little longer, and suddenly there was this odd sound. Very odd. It was coming from Bel Chance's stall, so we went over to investigate. Her water bucket had only a few inches in it, and... she was muzzle deep, blowing bubbles! That was the final clincher. We figured we could not possibly do better than this mare, who had it all... good looks, kind eye, calm disposition, jumping form, and a sense of humor to boot. We filled her bucket and went to the house to consolidate the deal. We had a horse!
On to Early Days
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