Buying a horse takes an incredible leap of faith. You hope that this will be your "forever" equine partner. And yet, you are ready to commit after less time than you would spend on a typical first date. How many people do you know who got engaged to be married after a coffee date at Starbucks? Ask any horse owner how much time they spent getting to know their horse before purchase, though, and the answers will probably range from an hour or less to a few days, on the high (and rare) end. I suppose it's a bit like speed dating. You're not so much finding all the great things in the potential mate, but you expect that the red flags will wave you off the wrong partner in short order.

The same is true of the vet check. The best you can hope to walk away with is a conclusion that there's nothing seriously wrong with this horse...today. As any horse owner will tell you, health and soundness are fragile commodities in the horse world, never to be taken for granted.

Having walked away from one vet check in tears, I spent the eight days between my first date with Samba and her scheduled vet check biting my nails to the quick. What if she was lame? What if her wonderful temperament evaporated into thin air, and Devil Mare appeared? What if the vet check went perfectly, but she refused to load into Lisa's trailer? What if the Earth stopped spinning on its axis, and we were plunged into eternal darkness? Yes, my nerves were getting the best of me.

My fears were all unrealized. The morning of the vet check dawned sunny and clear. Lisa - friend, trainer, cheerleader - hooked up her warmblood sized trailer, and met my hubby and I at the home of a local horse owner (I'll call her Clancy) where Samba would be living. We had an uneventful drive to Alamo Pintado, and a vet check which ended well (Samba got gold stars on the report, with the vet pronouncing her "gentle and well mannered").

Samba provided her own version of stress reduction, displaying her personality in ways that made everyone laugh. Never having worn protective boots, she high-stepped around the parking lot after we put quilt wraps on her legs, looking at us like we were crazy people. "Why are you making my legs fluffy?" When she figured out that the wraps were not evil instruments of torture, we set about loading her into Lisa's trailer. We learned she had never loaded on a ramp (the seller brought her to the vet check in a stock trailer), but she took it in stride, walking in with a little urging (and a handful of grain...my first indication she is highly food motivated).

My fears that she would have a meltdown on the trip home proved unfounded too. Though Los Angeles freeway traffic made the trip last five hours, Samba happily munched hay and chilled like a pro. We ran out of daylight before we ran out of road, so when we arrived at Clancy's, it was pitch black. The ambient light from the barn aisle provided just enough light to see what we were doing, but my heart skipped a beat when we opened the trailer door. How would Samba handle backing down a ramp, in the dark? My heart swelled with pride when she backed down the ramp as if she had done it 100 times.

We promptly introduced Sammie to her new home: a 12 x 12 box stall with a 24 foot run. I thought it was the perfect board situation. 4 miles from home, a round pen and arena to work in with Lisa (the only public boarding facility in my town would not allow outside trainers, and did not have a dressage trainer), and an owner who assured me she always put the health and well-being of the horses first. I would soon become disenchanted with both Clancy and her backyard...more on the subject in future posts. In that moment, though, when I removed Sammie's halter and watched her sniff around her stall, all was right in my world.

Sammie settled in to her new digs nicely. She quickly located the prime pooping spot, and unloaded a healthy pile of manure in the corner of her run. I inhaled deeply, taking in that new horse smell. Ahhhhhh. Nothing better.