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| Vandas Angel, or "Van" for short. |
It's been one of my life dreams to own a horse, ever since I
started riding around the age of 10 (which is actually late for most riders—most
start around 6-8). While I will never, ever be very “flush” with money now, it will
totally be worth it to have Van in my life. Having a horse is sort of like having
a toddler for 30 years (horses live to be about 30) so it’s definitely one of the
hardest things I’ve ever done and I feel the weight of being responsible for his
health and well-being often. I don’t really know what I’m doing most of the time
but, luckily, I have good people around me who give great advice and, so far, Van
and I have been fine.
Van is an ex-racehorse (off-the-track-Thoroughbred), now 6-years
old but he was about 5.5 when I got him. He has only been off the racetrack since
June 2012 (not even a year!) and I’ve had him since August 2012. I “bought” him
from his breeder who was looking for a good home for him after he stopped winning
enough races to “earn his way.” This is pretty common in the racing industry and
his owner was good enough to spend the effort to find him a good home AND offer
him for free (lucky me!).
My good friend and trainer, Kristen, trained Van for the first
three months I had him and gave us a really great foundation to work from. Since
then, I have moved Van to a different barn and we no longer have the privilege of
working with Kristen and miss her every day. However, we are working with another
trainer and figuring stuff out on our own as well. Recently we went to our first
show and placed 1st in our class. I was so surprised, proud, and totally
comforted by the fact that I seemed to be doing something right!
We still have a lot of work to do together as we grow as a team
but we’re on the right track and good things must be in store!
P.S. Thank you, Anonymous, for caring enough to send me a little note and get me to start posting again. You really should tell me who you are but I respect that you realize I'm way too scary.
Congratulations on placing 1st in your class! He's beautiful. I'm also very happy that my creepy messages had a positive effect on you and that you've decided to start posting on here again. I realise I should tell you who I am (who would you like me to be?) but it'll take me a little while to build up the confidence to be able to do so. I'll get working on it! <3
I am desperately trying to guess here but I -guess- the British spelling of "realise" should help me? Maybe? Also, the little aside helps me guess as well.
But they are all just idle guesses until you tell me so get working on that. In the meantime, I will keep posting.
Hah, I wondered if you'd notice that clue. Good job. I finally remembered my login details for here, by the way, so I no longer have to sound like I'm from the more unpleasant parts of the internet. I look forward to your future posts!
I'm pretty sure I know who you are now. But it's almost so impossible that you're contacting me after all these years that I am just going to pretend it's not happening.
Ok.
-_- You're good.
Hm, sorry, I might've misunderstood you. I thought you were saying it in the sense of, "You dare contact me after all this time? I can't believe you! I'm going to pretend this never happened, now leave me alone!" which would be completely justified and understandable.
Oh no, no, no. I was trying to bait you into revealing yourself while still trying to seem like I'm patient enough to respect your secrecy (it's hard).
Do you still use MSN?
Ha! I knew it!
No, but I do use Skype. I feel like you had a Skype an at one point? Or I imported my MSN contacts into Skype... You can always IM me through Google, though, can't you?
I enjoyed reading this post very much. I learned much more about Van.