Testing God - Post Seven

At the training center where we were stabled, exercise riders (good ones, anyway) were rather hard to come by. The racetrack is a place where people can easily ‘fly under the radar.’ It is a rather self-contained little world that one would never have to leave if one chose not to. If you wanted to, you could set up a bed, hotplate, television and refrigerator in a tack room, just steps from your place of employment. You can shower in the public facility, and eat at the track kitchen. Many trainers pay in cash, so there is no need to even leave the grounds to cash a paycheck.

As you might imagine, because of this, the track can attract some sketchy characters. Oddly, the track is one place where occasionally you find people going about their jobs “under the influence.” And as scary as it seems, exercise riders are no exception. Often when this is the case, it is because they are full-blown addicts. Other times, it is because they have experienced one-too-many accidents or severe injuries and have “lost their heart.” When this is the case, we call it obtaining “heart in a bottle.”

When you work with horses, and more specifically Thoroughbreds, it is not a matter of if you get hurt, but when. I know this all too well.

All this to say that it was slim pickens when it came to warm bodies to get our horses to the track every day. We currently had two riders. The first fell into the category of “addict;” the second was “heart-in-a-bottle,” having once been a successful jockey who was now struggling to earn a living galloping horses in the morning.

It was a week or so into UB’s stay with us, and rider number one was his exercise boy. There didn’t seem to be a problem on the track during his training session; UB and rider made it around the track just fine, successfully executing the instructions that Jerry had given. Jerry and I headed back to the barn to finish UB’s stall while horse and rider made their way to the back gap, one of two entrance/exit ramps to the track.

A few minutes later, they entered the barn and then the stall. UB, soaked with sweat although the weather and his light workout didn’t warrant it, was shaking and wild-eyed. The rider, wild-eyed himself, was muttering under his breath as he threw the reins toward the horse’s head and jumped off. It was then that I noticed blood trickling down UB’s face underneath his right eye, where I could see that the lid was torn.

Daily Notes: I’m unsure why God is being silent on the tithe fund. But because he is normally so clear when he speaks to me, I will be content to wait until I hear from him. I am still waiting to get an answer from the CPA types on my questions about tithing directly from an LLC (lest I run afoul of the IRS) so I don’t have much to report, except to say that I am keeping track of the tithe portion of all income there as well. The question is whether I have to wait until income flows through the business to our personal account.

On a personal level, I am happy to report that for now, anyway, I am not freaking out as I normally would be when my business has slowed to a trickle. I keep telling myself that January and February are typically slow months, so I am going to choose to look at this slow period as God giving me a breather. In fact, if I was busy right now, I likely wouldn’t have allowed myself time to begin the Testing God experiment.

For those of you who don’t know, I have a small (just me, with help from my husband as needed!) pet and farm watch service. That means that when people with pets or small farms must go out of town, I swoop in and care for their critters. In addition, we have constructed nice kennels on our farm, so I am able to board dogs that would not do well left to their own devices. With the downturn in the ecomony, fewer people seem to be traveling.