I heard about her through a friend (well, I heard about her racing trainer through a friend), and, after looking at her pictures online and having a difficult time resisting falling for her sight-unseen, I grabbed a friend and a horsebox and made the trip to York.

She’s got a nice pedigree, and, well a rather hilarious race record–with a best result of second-to-last. But she’s had an excellent start and has quite the sensible head on her shoulders (and clearly was well-loved and well trained by her grooms and trainer), and she had about ten weeks out in a field just being a horse before I even went to see her, so she’s not too close to her last race.

She’s only been on the yard a week, but she’s taken streams, woods, blowing wind, and lunging perfectly in stride. We’re still in the mostly walk and occasionally trot in a straight line phase, and I’m working mostly on walking up and down as many hills as possible to start building up some non-racing muscles.

She’s also making her mark as a general yard favourite. She’s got impeccable manners (so far!), which is always nice, and I think everyone likes have a young project around, they make for interesting conversation and an excuse to play fun games of “do you know what a lunge line is” (answer: yes, of course), “what do you do when we need to cross water” (answer: weee! jump over!)  and “what happens when I offer you a carrot?” (answer: immediately you become her favourite person ever).

So far, so good, so much fun.