Aly, my beautiful chestnut thoroughbred mare. We have been together for almost 5 years. She is my baby, and just like a normal relationship we dont always get along. But in looking toward the future, and with positive thoughts in mind, anything can happen. Like most horse people, I have an intersting story to go with The Mare. (TM) :)
Aly was a Kentucky bred thoroughbred, at Lanes End Farm in Lexington, KY. And Sired by the well known racehorse Alysheba, (sire was Alydar!). I believe she would have been an amazing racer, because she just loves to run! And she was definately bred for it. However, her owner never paid the $40,000 stud fee or monthly board fee, so Lanes End claimed ownership of Aly. Having friends in West Virgina that run a horse adoption program, that consistently needs more horses donated to adopt out, Lanes End sold Aly to the program for a mere $5k (not really solid on that number for sure). Aly went from home to home for the first eight years of her life. It makes me sad that no one really took good care of her like I do, because when we got her, she was SO underweight and GREEN! The adoption program had no idea that the previous adopter was abusing her, and in turn neither did we. But when I saw her for the first time that didn't matter to me. I knew she was severely underweight and extremely unpredictable, but I loved her all the same.
We worked for the first 2 years to put weight on her, not worrying too much on competing or training.
Aly and I did some Walk/Trot dressage and eventually made our way to Novice eventing. Now, she is the fat and sassy redhead that everyone knows her for! (okay, shes not fat. but she has gained close to 300 pounds, so shes probably about 1050 pounds now) All our progress goes out to ALL the AMAZING eventing folks around here. Mary Lowry in Prospect, KY where we went for 2 weeks over my birthday 2 years ago. And of course all the people of Possum Trot Pony Club and Indiana Eventing Association for the encouragement and help over the years.
However, the current setback of a pasture injury on her HOCK makes it impossible to train or work without pain. My baby is in pain and it makes me so sad. She gets daily treatment, but the vet says it coult take at least 6 months for her injury to heal. Maybe longer. So, we will just have to wait and see what happens. She has made some progress over these LONG first 8 weeks, so hopefully she will start to feeling better soon.
