Taking the good with the bad, even when the bad is awful

We've just had the sweetest week and its ending has been less than savoury.
Boy turned 4 last Saturday, which he was pretty pleased about. On the Sunday we went down to Korumburra to ride the South Gippsland Railway. Smugness all round as we rolled past our farm, looking through the dirty windows up at our hills, our creek, our shed, our future. We shared this with Katerina and her boys, so it was a spesh kind of day. Later in the week we got news that our stock agent had bought us some cattle. We're officially primary producers! We have cattle! Only 20 until the next 'shopping' trip, probably this weekend. It's all falling into place. Tom's 'renovating' what he now says is a 'converted dairy', but I still call the shearing shed, and so does Boy. Old habits die hard...
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I got wind of a horse for sale in country Vic who sounded really nice. We drove up to meet him and decided to bring him home. First of all, I had to drive out to East Gippsland to catch up with my sister, her kids and my parents. I was organising horsey stuff from there and couldn't wait to get home to get back into horsing. In the last few years Dante has been happily spelled in a paddock with about 15 other horses, give or take. He hasn't had much asked of him, and I last rode him in early June, 2009. I was 21 weeks pregnant and had to get it out of my system, so I rode him with a bareback pad and galloped him up a hill, before popping over some cross country jumps. It was very special. I love my horse, even though life gets in the way of our relationship. I have a call for him that I developed in my time working for Robyn at the equestrian centre, back in my single days, and he comes to me when I call - Boy even knows how to do this call, it's very cute. Anyway, it was time to put my ear to the ground to find a horse to move Dante to the farm with. Through the networks I had found the first horse we would look at for Tom to have. Turns out he was just right for us. I rode him and he felt genuine and honest. Done deal! We met him on the 12th of June.
Last week, on Oscar's birthday, the 19th of June, we welcomed the new addition to the family. A beautiful, tall ex-racehorse called Handsome (track name Bottle), about 16.2 hh with a lovely, giving nature . We trucked him 'home' to the Lysterfield Equestrian Centre, where my Dante lives and has lived for 9.5 years, lately with weeks upon weeks without a visit. This week I saw him quite a bit because with the second horse there to settle in I actually got to see my own boy. So, Boy got a birthday ride on 'his' Dante, met our new boy and had a horsey kind of day of it.

Today I sit here, typing about the last week and feeling quite bereft. As many horse people would know, anything can happen and happens for no rhyme or reason. Handsome, or Bottle, broke his leg above the knee this morning and was put down by a vet. I was in the shower with Small Girl when the first calls came through on my phone, which was on charge in another room. It wouldn't have mattered, he would have been gone by the time I got there after throwing some clothes on, getting Girl into the car and arriving at LEC.
I waited for Tom to get home from a hardware store trip and he kinda crumpled. We made the sad journey to LEC together, trekked over to the hillside we could see him on, in the pouring rain. So handsome, even lifeless on the ground. He was still warm to touch, but I won't feel his ribcage move with his breath again. Dante had spotted me and come over to share the moment with us. I hadn't even called him and he knew it was me from my walk. I thanked him for being alive and for giving me all that he has. Cos you just never know.
We're going to live on a farm. This kind of thing will happen. We'll find another horse for Tom. Onwards and upwards, I guess.
Meanwhile, I'm looking at Handsome's racing papers. b1999 to Wineglass, by Lake Coniston (IRE), the Queensland-bred horse who won the Dunkeld Cup in 2008 for Bryan Sharp, graced our lives for a week with hopes and visions of taking him and Dante to live blissfully in the hills of South Gippsland. RIP, big fella.