Finally, new horse!!

Sorry, no photos yet..
But, I have a new horse. His name is "Were in the Red" aka Nic.. or as I've been calling him, Nicoli. He's a chestnut, star, one hind sock, 16 hand, 5 year old gelding. He had 7 starts on the track, and then went to another owner who started him on barrels, then was sold to the lady we bought him from who started to really work with him, and then had knee problems. Knee problems so bad that if she rode for 30 minutes she couldn't walk for 2 days, which led to a knee replacement, which means that he had been on pasture since late june.

We got there and he was standing quietly in their trailer (they hauled him to an arena so we could ride), guy tacked him up, then took him into the round pen and ran him around a couple laps, rode him a couple laps, then took him out into the huge arena. Nic did really well, especially for not being ridden or messed with since June. I got on and things went pretty smoothly. He spooked at some cows, but only went sideways a couple of steps. We decided to buy him.

Mind you, it was a 5 hour drive from our house to see Nic, so he has a long trailer ride. We stop at a rest stop and he's shaking and gaunt looking, so we give him a break for a bit, then go on our way. he got another break when we stopped to eat, and then gma noticed that he was really watching cars outside of the little vent thing, so we closed that and it seemed to help. He hadn't pooped and that was really worrying us, well finally he did poop.

Got him home, walked him out a bit, put him into the stall, eats some hay, and starts to want to lay down and roll, well that was NOT gonna happen. I immediatly took him out and walked him..forever, while gma made a late night run for banamine. All in all, it was LONG, TIRING, STRESSFUL day, especially for the horse. He had a mild case of colic. Was way better monday, and then today he pooped 3 times, which is better than Monday, and the poop was looser with no mucus on it. Been giving him equine senior in a mash, with some grazing, but no hay. He is much more relaxed, and not as gaunt looking. Not drinking much, but he is getting water from the mash, and he's peeing a lot, so I don't think he's dehydrated. Also been putting electrolytes in his mashes.

Nic seems to be pretty level headed. He's watchfull, notices when things happen. My gma and I were cleaning out the used-to-be spare stall, and we were bringing out the pool noodles and he was definitly interested. Not scared, but like "Whats that????" and gma put them on him and he didn't care. Then I brought out this mini-massager thing and he liked it, tried to eat it. Also tried to eat a bag of stall pellets I was carrying by.

So, I'm pretty hopeful about the whole thing, just the colic really scared me, because he's not on a trial, he's ours.
heres is his pedigree: http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/were+in+the+red he's got a really nice sire(won over 400k on the track).. and even though Nic didn't race much, or win anything, he has a race Register of Merit (ROM).

oh, and one good thing about the trailer ride was that he is a REALLY good hauler. Stands super quiet, loads very nice, is good to bring out of the trailer, just generally good.