Bringing Kip home

So, to continue where we left off, I had gone to CO twice to see this horse before deciding we would make a good match. My friend offered to bring him to me in WY, since I have neither truck nor trailer. We decided it was foolish for me to drive 3 hours each way just to supervise his loading, so she went to get him by herself. And the fun began.

Kip is somewhat less than "self-loading", and that's putting it very, very nicely. Closer to the truth would be a 2 year old child throwing a temper tantrum, complete with sitting back on the leadrope, rearing to the point where my friend thought he would go over backwards, and holding his breath until he turned blue (well, not exactly, but you get the picture.) Pretty traumatic for everyone involved. In the end, His Royal Heinie suddenly just decided to load up. He was done, thankyouverymuch. I, of course, was waiting patiently (NOT!) for the call that he was loaded and on the way. Friend, being a good friend, didn't impart all the ghastly details when she did call, but I heard enough to feel pretty skittish about how he'd behave when he arrived.

Hi, I'm here!

What I didn't know at that point is that Kip's greatest joy is to do what is least expected at any given moment. I was expecting seven kinds of trouble, so of course he acted like he arrived at a new barn every single day of the week. Not a whinny, not a prance, and no funny business.

We got his boots off (were only able to get them on the fronts anyway) and took him to meet his new paddock mates. Now, in his old place, he had two young TB mares he pushed around like a border collie with a flock of sheep. He looked at them, they moved. He was a star. He thought he was all that and a bag of chips. SURPRISE! The two little mares didn't think too much of him, and immediately let him know that. (Six weeks later, they still haven't changed their minds.) The gelding thought he was pretty interesting, though. NOT what the Kipster had in mind. Things settled down pretty quickly, after a few interesting moments like this one:

And all was good...I had a new horse after almost six years of being horseless!