Sounds a bit like my 'Frightnin Lightnin' - poor
guy has been mostly my backup horse - I've always had another horse around that
I thought was "better"... in retrospect, he's prob'ly the best horse I've ever
had. Can't tell you the number of times he's been jerked out of the
pasture after not being conditioned for a few months and asked to do a slow
fifty. I think the highlight of his career was the year we finished all 5
days of Timberon - he was taken at the last minute when my "competitve"
horse managed to cut an ankle right before the ride. We treated the ride
like a "diet & exercise camp" & took it slow & easy every
day. By the end of the week, Ole Lights' was pulling my arms out of
the sockets 'cause he was so fit & eager to go!
And even tho' he's (now) usually pretty 'low
key', he's been known to get hyped up a bit if he thinks there may be a race for
the finish (even if that's 5th.. or 13th... or 30th... place!).
So now he's 19 years old & less than 600
miles from that elusive 3000 mile mark... I think we're going to go for it
(although, rather slowly!).
I got one coming up on it. He's had some ups and downs. I got
him because I was having withdraws from having to retire my mare ( great
horse just getting into cranking out 100's ) to breed ( the curse of
the "clock" ) and my wife couldn't manage to stay on top of much
less handle her horse. The JBird has had some ups and downs. He had a
minor injury, got over it then got West Nile, got over that only to have
another problem. But he's sound, young (14 is not old ) and we are
looking forward to cranking up to a good year.
Lots of people say
their horses love the trail - I always get suspious. The Jbird does love
to go down the trail. The reson is probably he isn't the brightest bulb in
the lot and although he's gone down the same trail many times, it's all
new to him.
He's not a great endurance horse - he might not have a 100
in him. But he will go out and truck on down the trail at 50 or 60 miles
or 75 miles over and over and be ready to have a little fun racing in ( if
it makes sense and some times even if it only for show ) at then
end. A good gallop never hurt anyone.
I suspect he's a 15 year
horse before it's all said and done.
