Training

Following up on our success, Anette and I rode to the race track again. The race horses train every Tuesday and Thursday, and even though Arwen trains endurance out in the bush, I like to take her to the race track so that Chinada can take her for 2600m. Most horses are lucky if they get to run 2000m but considering the time Arwen and I spend galloping in the bush, this is nothing for her!

On her second lap, Arwen got company, but she passed the other horses as well. There has been a lot of talk lately whether Arwen is truly pregnant or not - and even I have been wondering. Her belly is considerable small (but then again, she's loosing weight now that she's back running) but she hasn't been on heat since January and she has milk. More than that, I have no further arguments. I have know nothing about horses and foal-births; I have no experience of how long gestation period this particular horse species (the Berber horse -> subspecies: Nigerian) has. We'll just have to wait and see, but in the meantime, I must admit that few things would be more fun than racing (and winning!) with a pregnant mare in a country where stallions are overestimated and where pregnant mares spend their last six months tied up to a post somewhere.

While Arwen races, Sahara found it hard to stand still. She is still on some sort of trial period in my book even though I have (since the day I bought her) decided to keep her. There's no reason why not actually, even though I find it ridiculous to pay more for a semi-developed horse than I did for Arwen. She's nice, gentle and completely stripped of imagination, meaning that even the most common form of mischief never even enters her mind. She has been feeding incredibly well (she's the Grand Voleur, the big food theif) and I have started to imagine what she will look like in a year or so. She has not been introduced to Arwen's kind of racing but she has developed the typical race-horsish anxiety when she watches other horses rush past her. However, she's not interested in any other horse than Arwen, for in Sahara's mind, the two have become one and must be kept inseparable. It's gone so far as to have earned her the nickname "Arwen's Shadow". What else do you call a horse that has made up her mind to always walk behind Arwen and follow her WHEREVER she goes???

On our way home, we met Piccolo, one of the eight "puppies" that my late Bamse had in 2000. Though I gave him away at five weeks of age, this huge teddy bear has never forgotten where we came from (he moved in right next door, so maybe it wasn't so hard for to keep remembering...). Unfortunately, his owner just died, so I'm unsure what exactly will happen to him. It seems the guard will keep him, but there goes a good dog wasted because there's no way the guard family will have enough food to feed him. Unfortunately, that's life in this country.

Ishtar