Testing God - Anatomy of a Breakdown, con't

As I perused the paperwork that now completely covered the island in my kitchen, I tried to piece together the racing career of the horse that had broken down. I was also trying to match the drug records to each of the horse’s races.

I found a notation in the horse’s not too distant past performances of “DNF.” This stands for Did Not Finish, and indicates that the horse did not make the full course before being eased. Not good, for sure.

Much of what I saw was pretty much what I had expected, but there was something that puzzled me. On the list of medications along with several drugs that I was familiar with there was one that I had never heard of.

I decided to make a couple phone calls. Luckily, through my ReRun connections I had ties to the best vets in the biz. These vets work for world renowned equine hospitals here in Lexington and the majority of their clients are Thoroughbred owners and breeders. Because of this, I kept all of my questions general.

The first call I made was to a young vet who had a reputation as somewhat of a wiz kid. This guy was indeed brilliant. Nate had become a personal friend of ours, as he had devoted much time to the cause of equine rescue. He and I served together on the board of a group whose goal was to try to standardize Thoroughbred rescue groups. He was often my sounding board for much of the frustration I felt dealing with an industry who adamantly denied that there was any sort of problem with misuse of drugs.

“Nate, hey, thanks for taking my call,” I began. “I know you’re busy, so I won’t take much of your time. I just have a quick question for you.”

“Fire when ready,” he said, which is code for ‘hurry it up.’

“I have a list of race-day medications that I’m looking at, and…” That was as far as I got before my friend jumped in.

“You want to know what they do?” Nate interrupted. “Read me the list…I’m curious to see what all these horses run on.”

My buddy is a little hyper, to say the least. And always, always in a hurry. But that’s likely because his talents are in such high demand. When he’s not working hands-on on a horse, he’s doing research and writing articles to be published in some equine medical journal, so I don’t blame him a bit for being a bit on-the-muscle.

“Oh, OK.” I said. I really hadn’t planned to mention what I thought were the run-of-the-mill drugs that I already knew about. But I started at the top of the list. “Bute, lasix, banamine, Vetalog,”

“Vetalog?” Nate virtually hollered. “VET-A-LOG??? They let horses race on that???”

“Well, I guess so. It's on this list.” I said, not quite sure what had him so fired up. “That’s bad?”

“I’ve studied that drug, Shon. I can’t really see where it would have any legitimate application on race day. Do you have any idea how powerful that drug is?”

“I guess I don’t…” I began, but Nate was on a roll.

“That drug is so powerful that it could literally tighten down a fresh bowed tendon to where a vet wouldn’t even be able to tell there was an injury! You’re not serious…horses are allowed to RACE on that??? Oh, hey, I’m getting an emergency page…can we talk about this later?” Nate asked.

“Of course, and thanks for your help!” I answered. Wow, I thought. Who knew? But I still needed my main question answered.

Daily Notes: According to Rich Toward God, the second reason that there might be a delay in the harvest is …

Learning—You may be obeying God and holding true to everything he has called you to. Keep it up, but also remember that sometimes, especially when it comes to the are of financial blessings, you may need to learn new skills before you will have more income. Could it be that your problem is a spending problem? Has credit card debt trapped you? Do you follow good principles of money management? Or do you need a raise badly enough to learn new skills that might open the door to a raise, a promotion, or even a new job? Don’t let yourself be trapped. Look for new opportunities and get ready. God will help you.

Oh my goodness…this one has me all over it. It is a running joke in our family that I am afflicted with career A-D-D. I have re-invented my work life numerous times over the years. In fact, I’m still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

I do love to learn new things, and I can definitely look back and see where God has used this to help us financially. It took a huge leap of faith to leave what at the time seemed very secure positions to start a Thoroughbred adoption program.

When it was time to move on from ReRun, I knew that I wanted to be self-employed. It was God that pushed me in the direction I eventually took. Working with animals was a no-brainer, but adding in the dog grooming was all God’s doing. I was so blessed that a friend of mine from high school has run a successful grooming business for years, and agreed to teach me.

Ronda’s kindness saved me thousands in tuition and a whole lotta time in schooling. She was tough and she was thorough, and with her help, I was able to bring in enough money to pay the bills while I got the pet and farm watch business up and running.

Over the past few years, with God’s help, I’ve learned to raise chickens, milk my dairy goats, store the milk and make cheese. I bake bread, store food for the winter and even make the kind of icing that you normally only get at the bakery.

On the agenda for this year is learning to sew and raising an heirloom garden to begin seed saving. This weekend, I’m registered for a beekeeping course, and Jerry and I are visiting with some dear old friends to learn about wine making. Instead of having a penchant for making money, perhaps some of us are better at saving it.