It Was a Cold October Afternoon...

Today was a cold -and rainy!!-October afternoon, and Auntie Mary, Katie, and myself, went to an open house that was put on at one of Mary's patients TB farm. The owner converted part of her covered arena into a restaurant/lounge, and part of it into an auction/show ring, where we all enjoyed a lovely lunch that was catered by the local racetrack, and that included beer, wine, desert, and beautiful horses!
For all of your sakes, I will try to avoid getting all political about racetracks and TB breeders, but let me just say that I am not a fan, and that I wanted to buy all of the weanlings, yearlings, and two and three year olds who were back from the track, and take them home with me...Grrrrrrrr!!!!!

As most of you know, TB's, like other horses, are either breathtakingly beautiful, or dismally homely, and this farm had some great examples of both. Most of the TB breeders that I know have always commented that they do not breed for looks, they breed for speed, and that you get what you get. That is true for any breed really, but I think that TB breeders tend to overpopulate and flood the market, because everyone is hoping that their next foal will be the "one." Again, you can really say that about any type of breeder, but you get my point.That being said, I thought of some of my QH blogging pals, like BEC, Cdn Cowgirl, and AOHCM, who like horses that are built for speed, when the above filly was brought out. Check out her hind quarters! She will be two in February, and just look at her! Of course, she has been being ridden for the past six months-don't even get me started!!!-and she will probably be dead lame in about one year, but if I had $21,000, I would have put a bid in on her(she sold for that price).

Then there was this cute little colt (above), who is a yearling-yes folks, those are shoes on his little hooves!!-and he was quite the little comedian. Most TB's are quite silly, and I have never minded being around them. There are definitely bad apples out there, but for the most part, once they have been of the track for a while-or if they are the lucky ones who never have to go!-they are a pretty friendly lot.

Just look at these little weanlings who were checking Katie out (above). They were debating who was going to be the first one to try and take a nip at her...lol!!!
Then came the stallions. This farm does have some well known stallions, and I overheard several people who were eating and drinking, talking about where they had just flown in from; to check these bad boys out. I loved the neck on this old stallion! He is 20-they have one there who is 30, but he is no longer breeding!- and still looks like quite the stud muffin...kind of reminds me of AOHCM's post on older, male, movie stars...lol!!!
This guy was one of my favorites, and I think that the filly that I like so much above, is his. He is not squared up very well in the picture below, but he also has quite the hind end on him, but he didn't make me think barrels...he made me think of Dressage or jumping!
All in all we had a great afternoon, and thank you, Mary, for inviting us to attend this event with you! Hope all of you had a great weekend!!!
One last picture of another one of my favorite horses. He would never pick his head up, so I could not get a good shot of him, but he was another one of their giant 'almost' two year olds.