There is nothing quite like the thrill of taking your new horse home from the sale. He’s wearing his new headcollar ( provided by the vendor, in theory), and possibly a new leadrope and stable rug. (Provided by you) You lead him out of the stable in the sales yard feeling proud as punch. If you’re a sentimentalist like me you pose for some photographs. You wonder, warily, if your new baby will load and travel well, and you glance round for likely helpers should there be any difficulties. If your horse loads easily, as Big H did, you are elated, and relieved. You know there should be no problems whilst actually on the road; travelling round the country for different race meetings is, after all, what your newly-retired racehorse used to do for a living. You can sit back and enjoy the journey home. Unless, that is, the friend who has volunteered to drive you in her horse transporter confesses, in passing, that this is the first time she has actually driven it…..
Despite this disturbing revelation, and the fact that we hit rush-hour traffic, and strong winds that buffeted us on the motorway, we eventually made it safely home to the stables. Big H unloaded easily enough, even though he had to exit backwards. ( He is so big – 17.2 hands – that normal procedures had to be re-jigged.) He looked around and sighed a little. He was understandably tired, and seemed to accept the fact that he was landing in yet another unfamiliar yard, instead of his own home stable, with a philosophical resignation. He was a racehorse; like a rock star, he understood all about life on the road, as well as cheering crowds in the audience.
I had made him up a deep, clean straw bed, and put ready a bucket of water and a pile of fresh sweet hay. He walked round the loosebox a couple of times, sniffing the straw. He grabbed a mouthful of the hay in passing, and paused to look out over the stable door. He called out (as best he could, being hobdayed; he can only actually manage a soft rasping noise) to attempt contact with other horses. One called back from the paddock, but it was distant: Big H was in quarantine isolation for a couple of days, for observation and worming. He sighed again, took another mouthful of hay, and then stretched his hind legs to stale. Then he felt better. The new quarters were adequate, the grub was satisfactory, the situation tolerable. He took a long dink of water, and then tucked in to the hay.
He did not object to the procession of visitors who came to ogle him. Indeed (perfect gentleman that he is) he would leave his hay to come up to the door to say hello; to check us out. But when I eventually brought him his bucket-feed (racehorse mix bought in specially for him) he did his rasping whinny as if to say, ‘Thank goodness for that ! I thought it was never coming!’ The excitements and upheavals of his past few days had not upset his appetite; I left him in peace to enjoy his supper.
For Heatherlea Squire – now my Big H – this was all just more of the same old same old. He’d been doing it most of his life. He was born in New Zealand in 1998. He raced there on the flat 24 times, winning twice and being placed 10 times. Then he was sold for a high-hatful of money and imported to Britain. Here he raced for two years over hurdles and, a couple of times, over steeplechase fences. But he never showed his earlier winning ways. And so, he was consigned to Doncaster Sales… and me. His racing days were over. Only he didn’t know it yet. In H’s mind, he was still very much a racehorse, merely resting in transit between races. As with most ex-racers, it took him a long time to realise he’d been retired from all that, and now a whole new – and often puzzling – life was about to begin.
Despite this disturbing revelation, and the fact that we hit rush-hour traffic, and strong winds that buffeted us on the motorway, we eventually made it safely home to the stables. Big H unloaded easily enough, even though he had to exit backwards. ( He is so big – 17.2 hands – that normal procedures had to be re-jigged.) He looked around and sighed a little. He was understandably tired, and seemed to accept the fact that he was landing in yet another unfamiliar yard, instead of his own home stable, with a philosophical resignation. He was a racehorse; like a rock star, he understood all about life on the road, as well as cheering crowds in the audience.
I had made him up a deep, clean straw bed, and put ready a bucket of water and a pile of fresh sweet hay. He walked round the loosebox a couple of times, sniffing the straw. He grabbed a mouthful of the hay in passing, and paused to look out over the stable door. He called out (as best he could, being hobdayed; he can only actually manage a soft rasping noise) to attempt contact with other horses. One called back from the paddock, but it was distant: Big H was in quarantine isolation for a couple of days, for observation and worming. He sighed again, took another mouthful of hay, and then stretched his hind legs to stale. Then he felt better. The new quarters were adequate, the grub was satisfactory, the situation tolerable. He took a long dink of water, and then tucked in to the hay.
He did not object to the procession of visitors who came to ogle him. Indeed (perfect gentleman that he is) he would leave his hay to come up to the door to say hello; to check us out. But when I eventually brought him his bucket-feed (racehorse mix bought in specially for him) he did his rasping whinny as if to say, ‘Thank goodness for that ! I thought it was never coming!’ The excitements and upheavals of his past few days had not upset his appetite; I left him in peace to enjoy his supper.
For Heatherlea Squire – now my Big H – this was all just more of the same old same old. He’d been doing it most of his life. He was born in New Zealand in 1998. He raced there on the flat 24 times, winning twice and being placed 10 times. Then he was sold for a high-hatful of money and imported to Britain. Here he raced for two years over hurdles and, a couple of times, over steeplechase fences. But he never showed his earlier winning ways. And so, he was consigned to Doncaster Sales… and me. His racing days were over. Only he didn’t know it yet. In H’s mind, he was still very much a racehorse, merely resting in transit between races. As with most ex-racers, it took him a long time to realise he’d been retired from all that, and now a whole new – and often puzzling – life was about to begin.
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