Vetting - aka Horsey Land Purgatory

I'm pretty sure that the process of vetting a potential horse is one of the most stress inducing aspects of horse ownership.  Not because we don't make bigger, more important (potentially even more expensive) decisions once they are ours, but because the big, presumably smart Adult part of our brains have to go to war with the twelve year old girl who is jumping up and down shouting "pony! pony! pony!!!!" 

I have no photos for this post, but this 6 month old St Bernard lives at Gray Brad's barn and is cute.

Any number of things could pop up on a PPE, and if you're Twelve Year Old self gets too much control you'll end up adopting (or god forbid paying for) lamey-mc-lamerson because you've already fallen in love and you'll love him forever even if he only has three legs, half of his colon, and maybe one good eyeball... And when that happens, you my friend, are screwed.

Trying to force oneself to Adult in these scenarios is hard.  I've mostly decided that this is why you pay Trainers a commission.  It's not to necessarily unearth the last unicorn and bring it to you on a platter, it's really more to keep you from blindly writing checks for pretty- but useless, Brads.

Now, I'd like to think I've gotten the hang of this internal war, and I think I can even maintain a semblance of self control - at least for a couple of days. 

But vetting Gray Brad has taken  a week.

A WHOLE GOD DAMN WEEK. 

Part of this is due to the fact that while we were flying home on a 40 minute layover (which translates to a full sprint through Heathrow's Terminal 5...) we found out that Gray Brad's owner didn't really want to sell him. 

Or maybe she did.

Well, maybe for a different price

Or maybe just if I paid her commission...

Or maybe not.

I dunno....

Aside from nearly dying of heartbreak (the Twelve Year Old self might have had the upper hand there for a while..) I was furious, and we opted to postpone the vetting while we figured out if we did or didn't have a deal.

We were finally able to move forward with a PPE on Monday, which Gray Brad appeared to pass with flying colors.  But nothing really passes until our really picky lameness vet takes a really good look at everything. 

Everything means videos of everything, x-rays of everything, ultrasounds of everything.  Everythings of everything.

Everything.

And, as you may imagine, transferring all of those files didn't exactly go smoothly.  Attachments bounced.  Some videos came fragmented, while some came through fine.  There was even a (rather surprising) series of endoscopy photos.  (Something I've never done on a PPE), but between the language barrier and a 9 hour time change it was really hard to get my vet to figure out what she was missing with enough time to get the German vet notice while his clinic was still open.

Therefore my poor, little, underdeveloped Adult brain had to wage war for five whole days. 

This is not easily done.

Fortunately Gray Brad (somehow) has the world's cleanest films for a seven year old who's been busy leaping over huge jumps. His ultrasounds also looked remarkably clean.  And the endoscopy (?) was also normal...

uhhh, normal I guess?

So.  My friends.  GRAY BRAD HAS CLEARED THE VETTING. 

I'd be popping the champagne and letting my Twelve Year Old self run wild with Pixie Stix or whatever she likes aside from ponies - but the slight shenanigans that delayed the vetting still have me slightly on guard. 

I'm not sure I'll allow myself full celebration  until I hear that all four hooves are locked and loaded on a plane bound for LAX....

But, for now... things are moving forward, I'm just not uncrossing any fingers or toes quite yet.