[Next entry: "Bought And Paid For"]

03/30/2002: "Life Goes On… Or So They Tell Me"

Life goes on… Yes, it does, whether you particularly want it to or not. I kept hoping it was a bad dream - that I’d wake up and DJ would be calling for his next meal like always. But, it wasn’t, and he wasn’t. I felt like a zombie. I slept all day because I couldn’t bear to be awake, and then surfed the Net all night because I was afraid to go to bed - afraid I couldn’t sleep and would lie awake in the dark and think. No, couldn’t dare think.

One night while surfing Morgan farms, I came across this young man: http://www.valleystables.com/indy.htm. Suddenly, I felt the exact same thing that I felt the first time I saw DJ. Indy certainly didn’t LOOK anything like DJ, but there was something… So, I wrote to inquire.

That started a very nice series of emails with Brenda Vincent, Indy’s breeder. He was reluctantly being offered for sale - ONLY to the right home. I became more and more interested, and it ended up with Brenda and Ron Vincent calling here. Mike and I had a wonderful conversation with them, and I think we all came away convinced that Indy and I were made for each other. Just the fact that Ron and Brenda were so concerned about what kind of home Indy went to told us volumes about what kind of guy he is.

They even decided they wanted to deliver him themselves. This seemed like a SUPER idea to me. Not only eliminates the problem of finding a shipper, but it will give us a chance to REALLY get to know each other. And, of course, give Ron and Brenda a chance to see for themselves what kind of home their Baby is going to have :o)

As far as I was concerned, it was a done deal then, but Brenda wanted to send a video that she had made. It included quite a bit of Indy at his three-day colt start with Richard Thompson, a “natural horsemanship” clinician. It was all very interesting, and I saw that I was very familiar with everything I was seeing from my experience with John Lyons. The details were a little different, but the concepts were the same.

I was especially impressed with Indy’s performance in these sessions because he’s still a stallion - working with mares here, and his behavior was beyond reproach. Impressive! Ron and Brenda hadn’t gelded him because he is so mannerly as a stallion that they decided to just wait and give prospective buyers the option of keeping him entire and using him as a breeding stud if they wanted.

After watching the video, I emailed Brenda that this was a Definite Go! Of course, I will want him gelded - no matter WHAT Ami says! Understandably, Ron and Brenda wanted the sale confirmed before they did that.

I emailed Brenda last evening that we considered the deal done, and asked what we needed to do next. She said she would send us a purchase contract, and the only thing left to do would be to schedule a visit from their vet! I told her the moaning she might hear in the background would be Ami going, “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”