Jake enjoying the snow

More snow, but luckily we can let all the horses out to stretch their legs and let off a bit of steam. Not surprisingly Chipley Park is off, although it was a close thing as apparently it had thawed but then they got another cover of snow which scuppered any hopes of going ahead.
All the horses are feeling really well and are telling us that they are ready to race - Very frustrating as it looks as though these conditions are going to stay the same for some time yet.

Velvet Skye before she was sold

We have been invited to lunch by the lady who bought Velvet Skye from us - Skye had an accident racing as a six year old and was told by the vet that as her pedal bone was shattered that she should be shot. We decided to keep her alive and give her a chance. Doug made her a special shoe which had a high heel and took the pressure of the bone, gradually he lowered the heel and although she was still a bit lame we put her in foal - She had a filly foal (Spider) who is now four, but most importantly Skye was completely sound - We then offered her for sale with Velvet Red to a local lady (who will remain nameless) who wanted to try them both out to see which one she wanted. We thought we knew this lady reasonably well and thought that she would take good care of them both. After six months she finally decided that she wanted to buy Red, so we went to pick up Skye from her field and were absolutely horrified to find both horses in a bare field and in a skeletal state, completely unrecognisable. They were so weak they could barely put one leg in front of the other. Needless to say we loaded them both up and whisked them away for some TLC. We felt dreadful as we trusted this lady to look after the horses and had regular phone contact with her but had never actually gone to see them as we didn't think there was any need.
Anyway, to cut a long story short Skye and Red gradually put on weight and returned to their old selves and were offered for sale again - this time we were determined that there future home would be well vetted. Sue came to look at Red as I thought she would be better suited to her but she ended up falling in love with the feisty Skye and they have been a great team ever since.Skye has hunted, evented and done endurance riding which she absolutely loves. Not bad for a horse who should have been put down and nearly died of starvation. I am useless at selling horses as I would like to keep them all but thank goodness this story has a happy ending.