Panda

Meet the new boy, Menoloadyontrailer, or more fondly, Panda. He's a 2 year old trapped in a 9 year old body, OTTB gelding. He's got nice straight, stout legs, decent hooves, a color that will get you noticed in the show ring, and a bad habit of not loading onto a trailer. Yup. After not knowing if we were ever going to get him a few assertive barn buddies and I hopped into a big truck on a random Sunday to make the 2.5 hour drive to go hop him on a trailer and bring him home.

But we did not count on several things which turned our 5.5 hour trip into a 9 hour one...

First and foremost, when I tell you how long it takes to get somewhere I would suggest looking it up on Google maps and then taking the average of what I've told you and what the internet told you and go with that. And if you're pulling a trailer, add like 25 minutes to that average. What I'm saying is, the 2.5 hour trip (one way) was more like a 3 hour trip. Or more. Add 45 minutes.

Second, people tend to get hungry. It's a crazy phenomena that occasionally happens, especially when said trip begins at 1:30 pm. A Whataburger stop was in our future before we even pulled out of the barn driveway, we just didn't know it. Add 30 minutes.

Third, there was no "Hopping" on said trailer. There was much clucking (if you're not a horse person just trust me on this one). There was a lot of "scary things" waving. There was a bit of begging. There was definitely way too much sweat. There was even a good cop bad cop scenario playing out. But there was not a lot of hopping or a lot of trailering happening after our arrival. Eventually there was some spotty horse whispering followed closely by a lesson on R-E-S-P-E-C-T (he did indeed find out what that means to me). Then there was grain. Win FOREVER. Not an instant win, but the overall win. Grain first. Lesson learned. Add 2.5 hours. Seriously. And no, no alcohol was involved afterwards. We're that good.

Last, and bless our trailer lady's heavenly and sacred heart, driving with a trailer adds a bit of time. Driving with a HORSE in the trailer adds a lot of time. Which is how it should be. But in my optimum 5.5 hours "it'll be a breeze don't even worry about it" mind, that was not a calculated travel time expense. Add 1 hour.


So maybe my math doesn't add up exactly, I'm no math major and you shouldn't be either, but what I am saying is, it took a lot longer than the 5.5 hours my utopian imagination banked on. And the best part is, I still have the 2 assertive barn buddies. Cause let's face it, who wouldn't bond after being stuck in a truck together for 6.5 hours after taking 2.5 hours to load a less than cooperative horse onto a trailer.

So more about this belligerent barn addition! He's been called mean, depressed, forlorn, skinny, beautiful, pretty, stubborn and probably a lot more. He's got a one month update blog post coming up so I won't tell you how he's done so far but what I will say is that a lot was up in the air. All we knew about him was that he knew nothing. As in he can run and turn left in a group of other young TB's all losing their minds and high on roids. Regular riding though was a thing of mystery to him.

And that, along with a photo, is where I will leave you till his one month blog update!