All about Lou

This is the story of how I got my new Louie horse. 

Pancho has been the best partner I could ever ask for but he is 24 and is semi-retired so I decided to start looking for a young eventing prospect. Once I had reestablished myself in Idaho (after moving back from New York and buying Pancho back) I was finally stable enough to start seriously looking for a new partner. Jannae (my best friend) and I had looked and looked for months and we didn't find anything that I seriously considered bringing home. I was getting really discouraged and figured I'd have to wait until next year because I didn't want to drive anywhere in the winter.

One day I was at work and Jannae sent me a post to a mechanical horse in California that you can ride over Grand Prix courses and it helps you with your position (plus as a non-GP level rider you get to ride a GP course with a much lower chance of dying!) We were joking about how we needed to go down and spend some time on this mechanical horse to magically become incredible riders. Also maybe go to Disney Land... As we were playing around with this idea Jannae made a joke about how we should pick up an OTTB while were down there. Sounded like a pretty stellar idea to me. Next thing I know I've been sent an ad of this silly little horse from Canter. 

Pictures from his ad 

I immediately fell in love with his adorable face and those dapples!! 

He was advertised as Sharpton (AZ) a 16hh 4 year old. Raced 11 times in California (Golden Gate) only winning around $17,000 (Pancho only won $1,159 hahah!!). He was a little over my budget of $2,000 but he was the first horse I was actually interested in enough for me to look into him more. 

I ended up really liking his bloodlines (always drooled over Storm Cat babies) so that pushed my interest even higher. I finally decided I would go ahead and call his trainer and just talk with him and see what this horse is about. I called the number and his trainer Dan picked up. You could tell by the way he talked about this horse that he absolutely loved him. Dan has owned him since he was born so he knows everything about this horse. I explained to him that I'm an eventer and I planned on turning him into a sport horse and (a little to my surprise) Dan was thrilled!! He was so excited that Sharpton could possibly be going to a non-racing home where he could still be using his full potential. 

I had a few problems with this. He was in California. I didn't have a truck and trailer. He was over my budget. And I wouldn't be able to go get him for two weeks because of work (and a Wasatch show Pancho wouldn't let me miss!) Also to my surprise, Dan was happy to negotiate price and had no problem keeping him until  I could pick him up or have him shipped up to Idaho. Things were working out??? I honestly figured I would call him and he would tell me this horse only had 3 legs or something like that. 

Now was time to try to work out all the other details to possible make this happen. I'm blessed with a friend who has a truck and trailer and was more than willing to drive to California with me to pick him up. I couldn't believe that!! I had a few other t's to cross and i's to dot (like making sure to get money into correct accounts and get a cashiers check and budget for gas and find a place to stay and pick a rout to California) Magically everything worked out really well. I called Dan and was praying that no one had bought him out from under me but Dan had taken his ad down until I made a decision! I offered to transfer him a $500 security deposit to keep him for me for two weeks but Dan for some reason was very trusting in me and declined it. 

Jannae and I prepared for this trip for 2 weeks straight making sure we had every possible thing ready for him in the trailer and when we got him. We even had our friend Jen (who worked with polo horses in Flordia) drill us on the quality of our wrapping of shipping bandages so we could wrap them efficiently and correctly when we were ready to put him in the trailer. (I definitely needed a nice refresher course after being out of horses for 3 years!! So thanks Jen!)     

I think the only person more excited about this pony was my dad. My dad had already given him a barn name!! I was showing him pictures of Sharpton from his ad and my dad goes "look it's Lou Ferrigno!" then proceeded to show me these two photos side by side:

It was too true to deny, Sharpton was a beefy fella for sure. We ended up just referring to him as the Louie horse for the few weeks we were waiting to go get him. 

September 10th 2016 was the morning we left for California. 

We took two hour shifts driving and we had the Harry Potter movies playing in the background. Now, Jannae and I weren't all THAT close at this point in our relationship so I was low key (okay high key) worried that we would end up killing each other while attempting to drive 30 hours within a 48 hour period. Especially since 6 months earlier we hated each other with a firey passion because of miscommunication and rumors about Pancho while I was in New York which ended up all being false. The drive down was long but actually went quite smooth. We didn't have any problems worse than hitting the sleep strips a million times in Nevada (because they're not even wide enough for a horse trailer!!) #exaggeration. 

We made it to California and went straight to the race track that Louie was living at and we got to meet him! This barn was the worst thing that's ever happened to me because 100% of their horses were incredible! Jannae and I wanted to pack our trailer FULL of ottbs because of how gorgeous they all were. We're talking big and strong and elegant horses that somehow all had really nice confirmation. I have never wiped that much drool from my face before. Louie was all the way at the end of the barn. He was right next to a horse that looked just like him and at first I wasn't super sure which one was him. (Turns out that was his brother!!) Dan pulled Louie out of the stall and walked him around a little bit. I noticed a few things right off the bat. This horse was most definitely NOT 16hh. I wasn't sure how tall he was but I think the last time they sticked him was when he was 2! Second thing I noticed, this horse has sooo much energy. He pretty much burst out of the stall and had a nice few minutes of bucking and rearing and striking and just general rambunctious playing that was considerably more intimidating since he was way bigger than I expected him to be. 

In that moment I was like oh god, what have I just gotten myself into. But I've dealt with crazy boys before and I knew he would chill out with some time away from the track to just be a horse (okay I seriously hoped!! It's hard to be confident when you've taken a hiatus from horses for a several years to live in a massive city piled on an island and your first new horse back is a huge, crazy, and built like a tree trunk).

Dan kept telling me "oh he's a lover he just needs you to tell him to knock it off sometimes" (okay 100% true now that I know Louie!). I had a very nice mix of emotions including: terror, excitement and exhaustion. In reality I wasn't all that worried. Watching this goofy horse run around in a little circle and buck all I could see was so much potential. This horse really needs a job!! He's going crazy sitting in a stall and being hand walked. 

We parked the trailer and headed to our hotel. We left Idaho around 4AM and at this point it was around 7PM Idaho time. We had been on the road for so long and the only thing in the world we wanted was food and a bed. We get to the hotel and start to check in when the lady at the desk asks for our ID's. Okay, no problem! Just kidding it was a problem!!! Apparently someone under 21 couldn't stay in a hotel without an older member of their family. This was a problem because although I was safe because I was 21, Jannae on the other hand was only 18 therefore making us staying together in the hotel a HUGE problem. We tried everything! We explained why we were here and we told them they could talk to her parents and they weren't having any of it. 

We were so done. So over it. Please don't judge too harshly for our next actions as we just wanted to get a few hours of sleep before leaving at 3AM to wrap the new pony and get on the road. 

I had Jannae park around back of the last hotel we could possibly find and I ran around the front and asked for a hotel room for just myself. This plan worked pretty well except that I kept answering the questions with WE!! 

Desk lady: "You need to be out by 10AM" 

Me: "Oh yeah no problem. We'll be out way earlier than that. I mean me and the horse I'm picking up here... not another person... uh" 

She definitely looked at me pretty weird but just went with it. We quickly found out that this was possibly the sketchiest hotel in all of america. And by that I mean there were a whole lot of ladies being picked up off the corner and brought here right in front of us. We basically unpacked the entire truck to make sure it didn't get broken into. This included a huge Yeti cooler that weighed a million pounds. Unfortunately, our room was on the second floor so we struggled to get it up the slippery wet stairs. You know when you've just had the longest day of your life and you're so done that you start laughing hysterically because if you don't you'll probably cry or scream or punch someone in the face? That is exactly where Jannae and I were. 

We made it to the room and were way too tired to go get dinner (also didn't want to be murdered or something) so we had a wonderful dinner of Dr. Pepper and salt and vinegar Pringles. We also turned the tv on but the volume was broken?? It was so quiet (wasn't going to work with the nature of our neighbors... if you know what I mean...) and then all of a sudden it would be super loud! 

I was on the side of the bed closest to the door (which wasn't super sturdy tbh) and I remember clearly saying "Great, so when a murderer breaks in I get to die first!!". But we made it through the short night and were off to the races! (hehe get it. #sorrynotsorry). That's when the next few problems arose. We had to get all of the stuff back down to the truck which included the Yeti cooler that was a bagillion pounds. Also this cooler literally had the smallest handles in the world and the stairs were super slick. Jannae went first down the stairs with half of the cooler and I followed. I slipped and fell on my butt and accidentally dropped the cooler right on top of Jannae!! I was laughing SO hard (I don't think she was). Once we got to the truck we saw that the right mirror on the truck had been smashed. Someone clearly either took a baseball bat to it or side swiped it with their car because all the electrical equipment was torn out and laying on the ground. Super!!! First stop, Walmart for duct tape. 

We finally got it taped back on and got to the track. We got all the paperwork done and Louie was officially mine!!! We got him wrapped and put in the trailer with no problems and we were off! 

We had flexible plans including an extra day incase we needed to stop half way through to give everyone a rest but Louie wasn't about that. When we were driving he was spectacular! When we stopped all hell broke loose in the trailer and he kicked the absolute shit out of the walls. So we tried our best to take the shortest possible stops - only to use the bathroom and to offer him water and check on him and such. Jannae ended up driving for the first 6 hours straight because I didn't want to drive over Donner Pass ha! and I drove the last 8 or so until we got into Meridian. The drive went really well aside from having to unroll the window to push the duct tape back down onto the mirror!! 

We followed a truck and trailer all the way through Donner Pass. She clearly knew what she was doing and had driven this with a trailer many times because she knew it like the back of her hand. Every turn was perfectly planned out and every car she passed she knew exactly when to do it so she would go flying off a cliff. We decided to make her our buddy. We were so grateful that she got us through the mountain safely. Once we were in Nevada she pulled off and we waved and she waved back and it was a really nice moment where we all bonded I feel. 

A few hours later after we stopped for gas we're back on the road and we see a truck and trailer ahead of us. We were stuck in this middle ground where we didn't want to go 30 mph but we also didn't want to go 90 so it was hard to find a buddy. We figured we catch up to the rig and see if they qualified to be our buddy or not depending on how they were driving. It ended up being the same lady that took us all the way through Donner Pass!! She was the best. She had a really nice truck and trailer and had USEF stickers on her trailer and she had a cute dog. We debated just following her home and seeing if she would adopt us.

We did get to one point where the next city was really far away and the both of us were in the unfortunate position of 'about to wet your pants'. This is when we really became friends. This is how I knew I could trust Jannae when my accident happened not to laugh at me but to hold me hand and be with me through all the really embarrassing and painful things. We weren't going to make it, man. We ended up doing the campers squat pee in between the truck and the trailer under the gooseneck on the side of a highway. I still laugh out loud about doing that (don't act like you've never been there!!). 

Finally we made it home!! 

Not 16hh...

It was like 50° and this poor kid was freezing! 

That's how I got my Louie horse!! Stay tuned for the next chapter about when I got to the barn the next day and Louie couldn't walk and his legs were shaped like an elephants!