Hello again Dear Humans! The winter season is over and my human Ma Leueen had already gone back home. When I saw Assistant Lindsay packing up my travel trunk I knew that I would be on the road soon. She packed in both my bridles, my saddle, couple of saddle pads, my grooming brushes, my black watch lounging coat (humans call it a stable blanket) and some bags with my vitamins. It’s a lot of stuff.
The next morning, I had hardly finished my breakfast when Coach Lou turns up and wheels my travel trunk out to the side of the barn. “That’s it! Today is the day.” I said to myself. Coach Lou was wearing a T-shirt with a big red S on it. That’s for Superman. I know these things. I also know that Superman is one of the human mythical stories about a very strong man who can also fly, which most humans cannot. I thought Coach Lou had worn it because he was going to do a Superman thing and just toss my travel trunk, which is pretty heavy, up onto the transport when it arrived. Well, why not?
Then I heard the sound of the big 18 wheeler rolling up. I could just see it coming into the parking area. That’s my transport! Pretty soon I was walking up the ramp and into my stall. Here’s a picture of me walking on. Check out my tail…..doesn’t it look great in the morning sunshine?
I’m walking past some other horses to my stall and I hear “ Hey you could lose a pound or two!” I looked at the horse who had said that. A Thoroughbred. A racehorse. “Ok bag of bones,” I said to him. “I’m an upper level dressage horse. We’re the weight lifters of horse sport in case you don’t know. I could bench press you and a couple of your pals and still do a full pirouette while doing it. So…..respect!”
“Ok! Ok! Just kidding” he replied and smiled. He was alright, just a cheeky race horse type. Turns out the other five horses were all race horses. They’re ok really. As we started off northward I heard about how they had spent their winter training. Three of them were not going to Canada like I was. They were going to somewhere called Ken Tuckee. They said they were going to do some races there. So, we chatted away, ate hay and had a few naps. I reminded them all to drink their water. Most of them had not travelled as much as me so they needed that reminder. Not drinking can end up making you really sick. We made some stops and the drivers gave us more water and hay. It was just starting to get dark when we pulled in and stopped. We were all unloaded from the transport. Three us were loaded onto a smaller transport and off we went. We called out a “farewell” and “good luck” to the others and they said the same to us. It was dark by the time we were back on the road. It’s a long night and we were pretty quiet for most of it.
In the morning, we got to the border crossing. I was a bit nervous about this as sometimes there can be quite a delay especially if there is a problem with anyone’s export papers. Boy oh boy…I’ve been through that before. Did I tell you about the time one horse had to be taken off because there was something wrong with his papers? That was a real mess. But today everything was fine and we drove on. It was cooler than Florida and a bit of a dull day. I was pretty tired but I knew it would not be long now.
When we turned in to the driveway I could smell the familiar cedar trees of Oakcrest Farm. It was perfume to my nostrils. I called out and got an answer. My friend Caspari was out in the paddock. “Hey, Biasini, welcome home.” That made me smile. The transport stopped and my travel trunk was unloaded. Then Carl, the barn manager, came on and led me off. I called out a “farewell” to my two travel companions.
My stall is the same as when I left it. Nice to see out both of the windows. I looked across the aisle but my friend Dottie was not there. Carl told me she has gone to a new home. I hope she’s happy there. Other old friends were calling out. “Hi Biasini, Good to have you back.” “How was Florida?” “Hey, I hear you won at a big show! Good on ya.”
It was like I had never been away.
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