pet connection

My niece Kate is the cool kid I am so glad I never had, because her parents (my brother and sister-in-law) did a far, far better job raising her than I ever would have. Instead, I got to be Cool Aunt Gina, and over the years I have worked pretty hard at that job. Done OK with it, too, I think.

Consider:

• I convinced her parents very early on that every girl needs a horse. This has not only cost her parents thousands upon thousands of dollars in horse-related expenses over the last 15 years (hahahaha!), but it also means that they do not have a daughter who wants to be an attorney like her aunt and grandfather on mom’s side of the family, but an equine veterinarian in keeping with the animal-loving crazies that run on my side of the family. (OK, really … just me.  Ha! I win!) Kate’s an equine studies/pre-vet major in college now, and she’s on the university’s reining team. (She wouldn’t even consider a college that didn’t have an NCAA equestrian team.)

• For years, her Uncle Joe and I have taken her to San Diego for a weekend at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. The rules: You say what you want (f-bombs cheerfully ignored), you eat what you want (pretzels and Mountain Dew? Cool!), and you don’t tell your parents we place bets for you. Kate is an outstanding handicapper, by the way. One time just after she hit on a 50-to-1 shot, her cell phone rang. It was her mom. “I won! I won! $100! I won!” she shrieked into the phone, and then saw us looking at her in horror. She immediately shifted down 99 percent. “Uh, I mean hypothetically, of course. No, I’m not gambling,” she tells her mom. Good girl!

• I bought her a rope last month. Not just any rope, but a special ropin’ rope (in purple), the kind cowgirls need to git them little doggies.

And best of all:

• I think I may have landed her a summer job with trainer Kristin Mulhall, although maybe not this summer. (Her parents ought to like this one: If the seven-days-a-week, 18-hour-days of  working in a racing stable don’t cure her of the “horse thing,” nothing will.) I met Kristin through this post, a story that ended up in this book, and we see her every summer at Del Mar.  Kate herself will have to seal the deal, and I hope she can and does.  Kristin will work Kate’s butt off, and Kate will learn more in a couple months than at four years of college.

So how does all that get me a horse? Glad you asked!

Like any good cowgirl, Kate wasn’t leaving her best friend behind when she left for college last August. She put her quarter horse gelding, Peppy, in her horse trailer, fired up her Ford F150 and headed south to college. This move was complicated by the fact that Peppy is currently injured and lame, looking at months of rehab.  He may never regain the ability to compete at a top level, especially now that Kate’s getting  really, really good. So Kate’s riding the team horses, and walking Peppy every day as he works through his rehab, fingers crossed.

Now, besides being Kate’s Best Friend Forever, Peppy’s a great horse. He’s about as bomb-proof as a horse can be, a solid middle-aged gelding. He has seen it all and done it twice. He has no vices, good feet, and does all the nice things a good horse does: Trailers, ties, stands for the farrier, puts up with the veterinarian. He’s also a nuzzler who craves kisses from his girl.

If he doesn’t regain his competitive form, he’ll likely be a good light-duty riding horse for someone else. And Kate has decided that someone else will be … me. Because Kate’s a realist, and she knows that when you sell a horse you just don’t know what’s going to happen, especially when they’re not altogether sound. That’s not acceptable to Kate, not for her BFF.

She has heard me say for years that all I’m working for is some acreage,  as off the grid as I can manage it. Chickens, goats, garden … and a couple of easy-going geldings for riding and one or two of Kristin’s retired, unridable racehorses for “pasture pets.”

Kate listens to all the blah blah blah and decides, “If Peppy has to retire, he’s going to Aunt Gina’s.”

Smart girl, is Kate.

And so, I have a horse, in theory. Not right now … but likely not too far away from now and forever.

I believe my brother — Kate’s dad — would consider this Sweet Revenge.

Peppy and Kate:

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