After Racing: Retraining Thoroughbreds

Friendly Neighbor or, "Ned" as we're calling him seems to clean up well.  He's still pretty fuzzy, but I think he's going to be a nice looking horse once that winter coat drops off.  For all you Simpson's fans out there..."Hank" and "Flanders" were the other choices for barn names.  He doesn't really seem like a Flanders, but Ned seems to suit him well enough.

The vet was out yesterday and both Ned and Wilson (Sunny Thoughts) are good to go for work.  Wilson is going to stay with me for a while and we'll see how things go.  He is a nice mover and seems to be a little nervous, but has a willing attitude.  I think he's going to be a nice horse.  Ned is going up to another trainer in the Lafayette area to get some trail riding experience.  I think that will be really good for him.  He seems the "heavy hunter" type, so experience crossing water, getting out of the barn, and working hard will translate well to that.

In other FFI horse news, two of my previous foster horse's Saribel Cruz (aka Flirt) and Soothe the Soul (aka Sully) have beend adopted!  This is wonderful news and we're all really excited because both homes are fabulous.  Sully went to Pattie D., who has fostered him since August.  She recently realized that she just adored him way too much to ever see him leave her pasture.  Flirt was adopted by Nicole Pearson of Foxton Farm in Romney, IN.  Flirt will be added to Nicole's line of personal show horses.  We're very excited to watch Flirt blossom into a really nice show horse!

Jewel and I participated in our first show since her colic surgery nearly 3 years ago.  There have been a couple of other injuries since then that have prohibited her return to the show ring, but we finally did it.  AND, I'm really proud to say that we did pretty darned well!  Despite receiving 6 penalties in our First Level Test 1, we still earned a 64.4%, which was good enough for 2nd place.  We might just have finished in first had we actually ridden a clean test.  Despite my bobbles, I was really pleased and look forward to showing again in the near future.