The Best Laid Plans (Part One)

It seemed like a good idea in the beginning. The worst plans usually do.

Obviously, I’m not too smart. I have five horses; two are ridable.

Because of all of those horses, I was trying to save money.

Which is why instead of having a commercial shipper bring my two-year-old filly from Sacramento to Los Angeles, I decided to haul her home myself.

A little background is probably necessary.

About four (ish) years ago, my heart horse Lucy’s first foal was coming three. Faith was big and looked like a five-year-old. I was concerned about putting her in a training program that would push before she was physically ready.

In the convoluted way my mind works, I decided to breed Faith. Sort of.

Bear with me. I adore foals! I really loved having Faith as a foal. She was a hoot to play with! She came when she was called and loved attention. She was like a giant dog I didn’t keep in the house. But because Lucy could no longer carry a baby and I knew she was talented and well-bred, I used Faith as a surrogate to carry Lucy’s baby.  But with a different stallion. It was a little weird, but it gave Faith an additional year to mature before going to work for a living,

All went mostly well – there were a few hiccups along the way; she was a horse. Faith gave birth to a lovely filly; Layla.

After Layla weaned, Faith went into real training. Just as I was starting to ride her regularly, Faith developed neurological problems (likely from her sire,) and had to be put down.

I have still not recovered.

Thankfully, Layla has been great. A bay with a single white sock and a few white hairs on her face and a troll-doll forelock, she initially remained at Three Wishes Farm where she was born, in nearby Santa Rosa Valley. It’s close enough for me to visit a few times a week.

Bliss. I brought carrots and played with her a few times every week. That constant handling, and some professional training is way Layla is super friendly, and mostly well-behaved.

But last year around this time Layla was asked to leave. It wasn’t because she was a pain in the ass – or maybe it was. She had taken to jumping out of the pasture when the broodmares bugged her.  Or she bothered them. I only have her word that it was their fault.

Good news: she can jump. Bad news: neither Annaliese -who owns and runs Three Wishes- or I liked finding Layla on the wrong side of the fence along the road.

Layla needed to find a new place to live.

I moved her to where my show horses live. It’s a gorgeous place, and there were three other babies to share the field. Granted, those were ponies and Layla towered over them. In the beginning they shunned the big girl, but after a while, they became a tight herd. And I got to play with her every single day.

It was too easy.  But then the farm’s owner wanted all of the babies out. A nice place was found, with the bonus being that it was a lot cheaper. The downside -for me at least – was that the new ranch was in Sacramento.

That’s a really long way from Los Angeles. Like five to seven hours away.

I wasn’t going to be able to visit her every day, or even weekly. Or monthly,

Five months later, I realized I missed her desperately. Layla needed to come back.

By this tie Annaliese had a new place with bigger, much higher fences. We were invited back.

It was going to be really, really expensive to hire a hauler to go to Sacramento to pick Layla up. But I have a trailer and an SUV to pull it, so I conned my dear, long-suffering friend Laurie MacDonald that spending a weekend driving up and back to Sacramento would be an entertaining jaunt.

Road trips usually involve fun stops at weird roadside attractions like the biggest ball of string. Or the avocado museum or something. The 5 North from Los Angeles to Sacramento – it’s the 5 the whole way- has none.  

Zilch.

Some people stop at Harris Ranch, a BEEF restaurant located literally next to the stockyards, but both Laurie and I are vegetarians. As we passed thousands of cattle squashed into pens waiting for their demise, I focused on the road and Laurie closed her eyes.

We did make one one stop that didn’t include gassing up: Pea Soup Anderson’s restaurant. Anderson’s, for those who don’t live in SoCal, is sort of a Danish version of Cracker Barrel.  And they have great veggie pea soup.

And a windmill. And an insane gift shop. It’s legendary.

We made it to our hotel near the Sacramento Airport. We wandered around the weird location (six hotels, some very odd townhouses and acres of sprawling big box stores) before returning to the hotel to eat a Jimmy John’s veggie sub Johns and a suck down some white wine while watching the Janet Jackson special. Team Janet!

According to GPS, the Ranch where Layla lived was less than 15 minutes from the hotel. Easey Peasey!

END PART 1