Testing God - Post Fourteen

Jerry and I have formulated our own philosophy about owning and training racehorses over the 23 years we have been married. We have had horses of our own in training for most of those years, and while we have not (yet!) owned a Derby or Breeders’ Cup winner, Last Move bought our first farm (we thanked him by naming the farm after him) and Champagne Casey did her part by funding many improvements on our current farm.

The horses that we have owned that were not quite so productive were re-purposed before they got too deeply into our pockets.

Central to our core philosophy is the belief that horses are not machines. They think, they feel, they hurt, just like people do. We are blessed by the animals in our lives, and feel that if God saw fit to place them in our care, we need to be good stewards of that gift. If they are nurtured and tended to, they in turn tend to perform to the best of their abilities.

Which brings me to philosophy number two. Not all Thoroughbreds are cut out to be racehorses. Just because the daddy was a runner and the mama was a runner doesn’t necessarily mean that their baby will be a stone-cold runner, although it does increase the possibility of that happening.

Here’s a shocking revelation, though…some Thoroughbreds do not like racing. They are more cut out for jumping, dressage, or barrel racing. Some would rather hit the trail than perform in oval workspaces. Our years of “recycling racehorses” in the ReRun program substantiated this claim.

To put it in a human perspective, it wouldn’t matter if my father and mother were both phenomenal mathematicians. If you told me that because of this I would be expected to spend the rest of my life working problems for a living, well, just shoot me now!

Daily Notes: Committing to this blog has had at least one positive effect on me—I was such a cheerful giver this morning! No kidding. For once, I was really excited to put our check in the collection plate at church.

I was feeling pretty darn good, thinking that I was making some progress away from my usual tense attitude about money. I was feeling confident that because I am now keeping a tally sheet on everything that comes in, I am tithing what I am supposed to be tithing.

And then the devil did his thing. We came home to a busted pipe in the downstairs bathroom. The pipe burst somewhere under the floor, and there was a rooster tail of water spraying the entire room. Looks like another major reno is in our immediate future.

But I’m still cheerful, and I’m not going to let this setback set me back. I’m not, I’m not, I just refuse to. Does it count if I said that through gritted teeth?