HAPPY BIRTHDAY !

Big birthday celebrations today - and not just for this new blog about retraining and rehabilitating ex-racehorses. I specially waited to start on this date, 20th March, because it's my Grandad's birthday. Well - would have been. He was born in 1892, so he'd be 116 today. ( And if he were still around, he'd be straight out to the stables to give our ex-racers a pat, and then off down the bookies...) He did make his century, though - got the telegramme from the Queen and all. ( What a party that was !) Anyway - it's all Gran's fault that I'm so totally besotted with horses, and with racehorses and retired racehorses in particular.

My Gran was a great horseracing man. (And a great - but hopeless! - gambling man.) He was keeping lookout for street-corner bookmakers in the 1930's, when off-course betting was illegal in the UK. ( Well, times were hard ...) He would get betting tips in his dreams ( some good ones, too !,) and when he was in his nineties he was still trundling off to the bookies' every day, pension money in hand ( but not for long.) Yet, much as he loved the gambling, he loved the horses themselves far more.

I grew up hearing his tales of the great champion racehorses of his heyday in the 30's - Golden Miller and Hyperion, Reynoldstown and Seabiscuit. . One of my earliest frequent memories is of toddler-me standing on a chair beside Gran as he leaned over the big polished radiogram, the pages of 'Sporting Life' spread wide across the top. As the racing results of the day came in, he'd mark them off on the pages with a stubby pencil. I soon got to learn the names of winners. Then - the best bit - Gran would draw pictures of horses for me all over the newspaper.

So there was little hope for me, really - I was hooked on racehorses very young. I began riding at 2 years of age, and the rot quickly set in. I got my first ex-racer when I was 12, and have been loving, learning and living with them ever since. Every one of them has been different, an individual personality with his/her own story to tell, and lessons to teach me.

My poor Grandad never actually owned so much as a donkey in all his life, much less a racehorse. But I now have 3 ex-racers: Dara, Miraed, and Big H. ( You'll be meeting them later if you stick around.) Gran would be thrilled. I get involved in rehoming and reschooling other ex-racehorses, too. And every time I even think about maybe adopting another one, I can hear my naughty Gran chuckling up on his cloud and urging me on. ( Who cares about the bank manager ?)

So, Happy Birthday, Gran ! Thanks for all you have taught me, the wonderful, ups-and-downs-laughs-and-tears life it's brought me, and all the amazing ex-racehorses I've had the privilege to meet through it.

Now I'm going to share it all in this blog.