Friday, May 31, 2013

On Owning Horses - Jenni Smith

Equisearch blogs - Full Story

May 22, 2013

There are places in my heart occupied by a handful of horses that belong to others, but I had not owned a horse since my wonderful childhood steed, Diamond Lil’.

Last spring, the owner of one of those horses of my heart – probably the dearest – called to ask if I wanted to take her on.

Tosca is a 15 year old purebred Arabian mare. She was my project horse at a barn full of endurance prospects and, with a little help from people with better understanding, I started her when she was four. We went on to be a fairly inseparable pair for about four years. When I moved on to riding other horses for other people, I missed her sorely and so I kept in touch with her owners and let them know that if ever they were looking for a home for her they should think of me first.

Tosca is a pretty decent endurance horse – not particularly speedy but dependable and she and I finished Tevis twice, coming 20th on the second trip. But she has a ‘broken’ leg. Some sort of catastrophic accident she had when she was a crazy two-year-old in pasture and out of sight and mind left her with a significant chip of bone – detached from who knows where in her leg – fused to the outside of her fetlock on one hind foot. When interested buyers from Japan had pre-purchase x-rays done, it was discovered and her fate was cemented – never to be successfully sold for endurance...

Read more here:
http://blogs.equisearch.com/jennismith/2013/05/22/on-owning-horses/

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