An Unwanted Vacation

Winter set in with a vengeance, and the track at Victory Haven looked more like a skating rink than a training facility. UB’s explosive cough was likely an effect of the Polycrap but it needed attention, so rather than risk the well being of the horses, we convinced Joe to let us give everyone a break on the farm. It would, we pointed out, also give his bank account a bit of a break. He didn’t agree, because as he pointed out, horses can’t make any money standing on the farm. Finally Joe relented, albeit grudgingly.

We assumed that UB would enjoy being afforded a little R&R, and reconnecting with a couple of his old buddies—namely Digging Deep and J. Hamilton.

While Digger was happier than a pig in slop (and usually resembled one) The Hamster had a distinctively different take on farm life. Especially farm life in the dead of winter. The Princess, as my friend Jeanne had dubbed Ham, quickly convinced UB that farm life was the pits.

Heaven forbid it began to get dark and we were still readying the barn! Together Ham and UB would stand at the gate of their paddock and neigh frantically—it was really more like screaming—until we humanoids could stand it no longer and relented, bringing them in—ready or not.

March was approaching and decent weather days began to outnumber the bad, so back to the track we went, and not a moment too soon for The Unbelievable. He certainly hadn’t lost much in the way of fitness, as pacing back and forth along the fenceline kept his muscles taut.

By the time UB was ready for his next race, Turfway Park was winding down the winter meet. Jerry decided to drop UB back down in class to the level where he had run 3rd--for a couple of reasons. One was to make it as easy as possible on UB coming back from his layoff. The second reason was in hopes of having some money flow back into Joe’s bank account.

Victor Lebron’s stock was rising in the racing world, and at entry time he was in high demand, so our hopes of having him as UB’s pilot for a second race were dashed. Another young rider, Orlando Mojica, was purported to be talented and was available. But the question remained to be answered—could he and UB traverse the track as one?

DAILY NOTES: A couple more important truths from 21 Reasons…

2. God has given us plenty of explanation if we will only look for it and accept it.

The Bible gives many principles and examples to point us toward potentially productive reasons bad things happen to good people. The stories of Christians who have battled severe suffering show that God is able to produce much good from the bad we encounter.

And

3. God can do more than one good thing through the bad things that happen to us.

I’m going to use myself as an example to the above. With each passing blow to my sanity in 2010, I went to the Bible and found that so much worse had happened to so many others, and they had come out the other side better than before. And, when I could look past my self-pity, I had to acknowledge that indeed, if it didn’t kill me, it had to be making me stronger, right? It was certainly making me wiser and more dependent on God than on myself. Ah ha! Something good from something bad!