Safe and Sound

We got home after midnight last night, so I was too tired to post a blog entry before collapsing into bed. But we have good news all around on the horse front:

1. Boo and Shane arrived safe and sound at their new home in Florida.

2. Libby seems to be mostly recovered from her bout of colic.

3. Senter made his trip to the trainers just fine, and is now starting his educational career.

I wanted to spend some time with Senter yesterday to put him in a happy, interactive frame of mind before we suddenly put him on a trailer and hauled him away. So yesterday afternoon I groomed him for a while (That gray stone dust footing in his paddock really puts a fine gray powder into his coat and makes his white patches look very dingy).

Then I took him out to the round pen and let him romp for a few minutes. I didn't really ask anything hard from him---mostly just let him play and stretch his legs and get out any excess friskiness. Then I took him out on the grass and let him graze for a while, which is his method of favorite relaxation.

It was nice to have a fun, relaxing afternoon with him before sending him away. I'll miss him, but I'm so pleased that he has this opportunity.

When it came time to load him up in the trailer, he was really good. Even though he's only ever been on a trailer once before in his whole life, when I led him up to the entrance, he stepped his two front feet right up in, stood their looking and sniffing for a couple of minutes, and then hopped right in. (Maybe it helped that I told him that there would be mares waiting for him at the other end of the trip!)

Ken and I followed the trailer in our own car, because we wanted to be there to see him settled in to his new place, to give him a little continuity. We heard him whinny in the trailer a couple of times, but other than that it was a pretty peaceful ride.

When he stepped off the trailer at the trainer's farm, there were hordes of mares all standing by the fence watching, so he really wanted to prance around and show off. He especially had eyes for one Art Deco mare named Alura, who he will probably be breeding later.

The trainer handled him for a few minutes in the stable yard, letting him know that he had to pay attention to his handler, and not just go flirting with the girls. He responded well to her, and soon was settled down enough to go into his new stall.

They'd given him a stall where he could sniff noses with his neighbor gelding through the bars, so of course Senter had to show off and snort and prance around the stall for a few minutes, just in case the gelding turned out to be a mare. But before long he settled down and started eating hay.

He's going to have so much fun there, with so much to see and do, so many things to learn and keep his mind busy. He's just such a basically happy horse, pleased to have attention, eager for praise, I think he's going to do great.