Arthritis ? and No Frills FUN

[TddWil@aol.com]

I, too, was freezing unmentionable parts of my anatomy off at the No Frills 
in VA this weekend. And yes, I saw the zebra too, and I wasn't under the 
influence of anything but MSM and Snapple, the breakfast of champions. We 
actually had a new tow vehicle this time, my husband's 1 ton Ford Econoline 
work van, but we still had the crappiest trailer in camp, this being the land 
of aluminum living quarters trailers. The stock trailer is coming soon, I 
just need to rob a few more  Seven Elevens first. It started raining just 
after we got there, and since I forgot to bring anything remotely waterproof 
for the horse, we duct taped (thanks for the tape, Jo!) plastic sheeting to 
an old army blanket and put it on the horse. I figured he would spook and end 
up in West Virginia, but he did fine. Oh, this isn't my horse, it's my 
friend's, and I've only been working with him for 2 months, not much time to 
get to know a horse that you're trusting not to fall off a cliff with you. He 
apparently raced and then was a breeding stallion until last year. Now he's 
minus his doodads and works for a living. The regulars were there (please 
excuse any errors, it was pouring rain and people weren't leaving much 
exposed to the elements), Debbie Gordon walked by lugging buckets back from 
the creek, Lani Newcomb had a half Belgian and Norm Van Meter (the horse, not 
the man) in a corral being guarded by the world's meanest dog, Valerie Kanavy 
was there, and the vets all looked familiar (you guys need name tags!) . So, 
we survive the night and the horse is having his own private party bucking 
like hell in his little portable corral , watching the 50 milers warm up. So 
I tack him up and go to check in, trying to postpone finding out if he plans 
to continue 'partying' at the start. Well, he travels along behind the pace 
car with no problem and is actually controllable (new stuff for me). Then we 
turn off the road and a plastic monster forces 2 horses thru an electric 
fence into a cow pasture. Horses are caught, and since no one was home, 
someone stayed behind to fix the fence (Mr. Llop, I think, a guy that rides 
with his whole family). At this point I notice my right rein isn't attached 
to the correct thingy on my pelham bit (how many rings does the darn thing 
have on it!) and that I had ridden the start with one rein. So, off we go 
again. The car in front of us that is supposed to open a gate takes a wrong 
turn and we follow for 100 yards until someone sees a ribbon on the wrong 
side on the fence. So we all turn around and someone opens the gate, a little 
hair raising because we were all in one big clump surrounded by barbed wire. 
Then we got down to business and started up the mountain. Pretty uneventful 
except for a loose horse . My guy was doing really.well. We made it to the 
vet check 15 miles out and he was off enough to get pulled. After the last 
person got thru the check (that would be the zebra), I took the horse back to 
the vets to try and pinpoint the problem, which is possibly arthritis in his 
right front. So, we didn't finish , but we did see the best part of the 
trail, and I was very proud of Rashwan for being such a good boy. All his 
other vet scores were A's, and I held him back the whole time because he 
hasn't been in training that long. He goes to the vet this week for an X ray 
so we can see what's going on in the leg. Hope to see you at Old Dominion!

                                         Shelly in DE