This is a similar trailer, except the one I drove seemed way worse

Gideon arrived at his new home.  It was the middle of summer break so I had my days to spend as I please.  I spent hours sitting in front of Gid’s stall.  I wanted him to know me and to know that I was his girl.  Patty donated an old jumping saddle to my cause – the one of learning to jump on the meager budgetof a high school kid.  I tacked up my new horse with my free saddle and off we went.  Lauren, the other girls, and I took our horses to the ring and then to the field surrounding it.  All eyes were glued to Gideon as I put him through the paces.  We walked, trotted, and cantered all over the place!  None of us could believe I got this great horse in exchange for Dixie. There was a brief moment when he seemed to limp a little when we trotted through the mud puddle.  I looked at my friends – we all made eye contact at about the same time.  When it came down to it, it didn’t matter.  In my heart I was committed to this horse no matter what.

My good friend Randa had moved 3 hours north and she talked me into bringing Gid up to her pony club horse show.  It was literally mine and Gideon’s first weekend together.  The man who purchased Dixie offered to loan me his horse trailer, so I called him up and arranged to come get it with my new pickup truck we had just bought from my cousin.  I drove up to Pat’s barn expecting a trailer like every other trailer everyone else I knew had.  What an exciting moment when I drove up to see a 2 horse inline.  Now you probably don’t know what that means or understand the significance of it.  Let me try to explain.  Most horse trailers you see are at least the width of the vehicle pulling it.  If it is a 2 horse trailer it is usually 2 horses wide – what they call a “side by side” because the horses stand next to each other.  This trailer was, well, unique.  It was an old steel trailer with a dull, dark red color, approximately 3.5 feet wide.  Instead of being of being the width of my truck it was about 1/2 the width.  Instead of being 2 horses wide it was 2 horses long, hence the term “inline”.  My heart dropped straight into my stomach when I saw it.  I was grateful for the loan, and honestly I didn’t have any other way to get Gideon up to Tupelo.  So I hooked the old trailer up to my white Chevy Silverado and headed back to Winterview.  I had to drive on country back roads, and with the trailer being so narrow I nearly flipped it on a big bump at least twice.  I pulled up to Winterview with Patty and our vet, Dr. Vice, there.  They could see the panic written all over my face.  Let’s be honest – I was horrified to pull up to a horse show full of rich kids with fancy horse trailers pulling this thing.  Not to mention, I almost flipped it.  What if I flipped it with my horse inside?  And did I mention it was embarrassing?  Dr. Vice gave me a pep talk while Pattystood to the side and rolled her eyes.  I went and retrieved my horse and loaded him in – all the way in – the trailer.  Again, we walked through the space for the first horse and walked up to the front of the narrow space of the ugly horse trailer.  Dr. Vice closed the back door, I tied Gideon up, and we hit the road.On the road to our first horse show together…

Lesson for the day – do the research first!

Soli deo gloria,

Sarah

This is what it looked like on the inside...ick!