Honeymoon

At that point, of course, any sane and sensible person would have sighed, maybe even shed a small tear, and then said 'No thanks'. After all, there are lots of nice horses out there, of all kinds ; and thousands of racehorses retire from training every year. But the words 'sane' and 'sensible' are seldom found in the same sentence as 'ex-racehorse owner' . ( Often not even in the same chapter !)

And so Dara came to live with me. I was very careful with him, doing nothing to over-tax him whilst he relaxed, grew and matured. He was very under-cooked, physically. Though he was four, he looked like a backward three-year-old. As so often with young racers, all his high-performance feeding had gone into producing energy for the racetrack, not bodybuilding. I was convinced this immaturity was the cause of his suspect hind action. With rest, food, and gradual muscle-building, I figured, he'd just grow out of it.

For the first four months I never even sat on him, just led him around the village, did some long-reining and lungeing, and concentrated on bonding and relationship-building. He was nervy at first, understandably, but soon settled and decided he liked being a pet. He was well-mannered , affectionate, communicative, and gave no problems. When I finally did climb aboard, he was good as gold. We were soon hacking quietly round the lanes in half-hour sessions. Dara was calm in the small amount of traffic we met, and didn't mind tractors, dogs or kids with footballs. (Though he did snort in disgust at one sweet child who started squealing loudly as we drew alongside. I almost did the same.) Dara was adorable. I loved him to bits.

And so the six months refund period passed, with nothing to report. All seemed to be going well with darling Dara.