Road Trip
His last photo at Makers Mark Secretariat Center
Arrow ready for the trip home!
All of the details were finally worked out. The vet check was complete. It was my last day of eighth grade and when I got home, there were a few last minute items that I needed to do (wrap Wish, clean out the trailer, pack my bags). My mom finished up her work late that afternoon, and then we were ready to make the drive from Kansas City, Missouri to Lexington, Kentucky.
During the drive, we started discussing potential names for Mindanao. We knew that we were going to change his show name to VitalSpirit because my mom’s company was buying him. Although, I really liked the name Mindanao, we knew that it might be difficult for others to pronounce it and that it was kind of long for a barn name. My grandma was great at mispronouncing the name. She usually said, “Mandango” when she was discussing him which seemed to be a cross between Mindanao and Fandango (the movie website). My dad and my brother are history buffs, so they knew how to pronounce it and also knew that it is an Island in the Philippines.
As we drove into the darkness, we started thinking of names. At first, they were short and fun names that were easy to say, such as Mo, Ace, Ditto, and Neo. Then I searched on different websites and found some of my favorite movie characters and video game characters. There, I came up with Edmond (Narnia), Pippin (Lord of the Rings), Link (Zelda), Bonsly (a Pokemon). We also came up with names that came to us on our journey, such as River, Lex (Lexington or Rolex), Rolo (Robin/Lorna). There were several others that were just too silly to consider, such as Ritz (based on Cracker Barrel) and Canoe (because we passed a boat). I posted the list of favorites on Facebook hoping to have a little help from my friends. The time went by quickly, because we were having fun. We finally stopped for the night just after midnight.
We arrived at the MMSC around 2:00 PM on Saturday. It was very active and the volunteers were busy with the horses and potential adoptees. As we went to the barn looking for Susanna, one of the volunteers was grazing Mindanao. We recognized him right away. They knew that he had a long trip ahead and wanted to make sure that he could stretch his long legs as much as possible before the journey. We spent about three hours at the MMSC completing paperwork, looking through Mindanao’s baby book, and enjoying the company of people that like horses as much as we do. I watched a few people trying out potential horses and hoped that there would be more matches made.
We joked about taking Harlan (the horse my friend Camryn rode during Rolex week) back with us to keep Mindanao company. The MMSC was having a difficult time adopting Harlan out... He was the type of horse that needed a certain type of person. Camryn and Harlan got along great. Susanna said that she would love Harlan to go with us and for Camryn to be his person. She was even willing to let Camryn foster him in hopes that she would fall in love with him and adopt him. We were able to get in touch with Kathleen (Camryn’s mom) and she agreed to take him.
Harlan in trailer
Since the MMSC does not have use of a horse trailer, they were unsure how well the horses would load. We were pleasantly surprised when both horses got in with a little bit of coaxing with treats. At about 5:00 PM, we were finally on our way back to Missouri. We usually only trailer our horses about five to six hours at a time, and then we find somewhere off the main road to walk them, give them a drink, and see if they need to do anything else. Since we knew these horses were young and were not sure how they would handle being in a strange place, plus we had gotten another late start, my mom arranged to spend the night in Mount Vernon, IL. We had stayed at the same place when we moved from Florida to Missouri five years’ ago. We remembered that the stalls were large, the people were nice, and it was right off the highway.
We arrived at the Rock-n-4L Training Facility http://rockn4l.webs.com/ at about 8:00 PM. The owners, Rick and Marla Lacey, met us at the barn. They gave us some time to unload the horses. We needed that time, because Mindanao did not understand how to back out of the trailer. It took all of my mom’s strength and patience to get him to the back of the trailer. When Mindanao finally stepped off the trailer, it was if he was falling to his death and he quickly jumped back into the trailer. She tried to have him step back out, but Mindanao was stronger than my mom and he refused to budge. He wasn’t being bad or dangerous, but he wasn’t cooperating either. He was like one of those circus elephants when they stand on a stool. All four of his feet were together and he was balancing, but he wasn’t going to move backwards. After about 30 to 45 minutes, the owner came to check on us. He did not want to interfere, but offered help if we needed it. After about another 15 minutes or so, my mom said that she needed help. She thought that we could be out there all night at the rate things were going. The Rock-n-4L specializes in breaking and training thoroughbreds and Rick has been around horses his whole life, so we were in good hands. Rick’s approach was similar to my moms, except he was stronger and firmer and he knew that once the horse was out, he would have to keep him from jumping back into the trailer. Rick had Mindanao out of the trailer in about five minutes. Harlan was next and he also got out of the trailer and jumped back into it. However, since Rick was still helping us, we managed to get him out in just a couple of minutes. We took care of the horses and found a hotel less than five minutes away.
The next morning, we hooked up the trailer and were optimistic about the day. After all, the horses loaded fine the day before. They just had trouble unloading. Harlan stepped into the trailer and took the front spot. Now it was Mindanao’s turn. Mindanao must have had flashbacks about the trip, because he was not interested in getting into the trailer. We thought we might have trouble, so we bought a big bag of carrots while we were in town. My mom coerced Mindanao. He was definitely interested in the carrots. He was fine going up to the trailer and looking in, but it was if his knees wouldn’t bend. I even tried to lift one of his front legs up into the trailer and I couldn’t get it to reach. His three year old brain just didn’t understand. After a while, Harlan started getting impatient and started bucking a little. Our trailer is pretty nice, so his bucking was more worrisome than it was dangerous. It just added another layer of stress. Harlan was ready to go and Mindanao was not cooperating. After about 45 minutes or so, Rick appeared and we quickly asked for his help again. He circled Mindanao like he was lunging him for a couple of minutes and then was able to load Mindanao less than five minutes later. We said our goodbyes and were back on the road. Harlan was happy that we were finally moving.
As we were driving, we revisited the name list. Most of my Facebook friends liked Mo. I liked that one too, but we decided that Mo sounded too much like no and that it could be confusing if we told Mo no. As we drove, we thought of reasons to eliminate every name on our list. Now we were back to square one. The easy name would be Spirit, but we had heard of many horses with that name. I think there is even a horse competing in the Retired Racehorse Project named Spirit. It was one of the first blog posts that I read. Eventually, we decided on the name Arrow. My mom knew a dog named Arrow when she was a kid. Arrow was also a character on the movie, “Treasure Planet”. Most importantly, Arrow was significant in Native American culture. Arrow was a great name and we were ready to move on from the name game.
We pulled into our property at about 5:00 PM. The Kansas City area had been having record rainfall in the month of May. Our yard was saturated and there was standing water everywhere. My mom didn’t realize it and drove onto the grass and almost got stuck. She had to put the vehicle in four wheel drive to finish pulling around. My grandma was outside waiting for us. She was excited that we were home and wanted to help. There wasn’t much that any of us could do. We opened the door and my mom went back into a shoving match with Mindanao (Arrow). Again, he wasn’t bad or dangerous, but he wasn’t budging. After about 10 minutes, my dad came outside to greet us. He wasn’t a horseman, but he had been around them enough over the years to know how to handle them. We explained our dilemma unloading and asked my dad for help. My dad was strong and used his shoulder to push Arrow backwards and out of the trailer. Arrow jumped back in, but my dad was ready for it and was able to shove him one last time. Arrow splashed into the grass and his legs slipped a little out from under him. He was quick to recover and then I walked him around and introduced him to his new home.
Harlan also needed a good shove from my dad and he tried to jump back in as well. My dad was stronger than the horse and was able to keep him out. Kathleen and Camryn were waiting with their trailer and loaded Harlan for the hour trip back to their place. Their trailer had a ramp and Harlan loaded easily and unloaded at the other end relatively easily as well.
Our first selfie
We all spent some time at the barn making sure that Arrow was comfortable and felt at ease. He seemed to settle in very quickly. My dad wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell that he was tired. We were wondering, with all of our loading and unloading issues, if we would ever make it back to Kentucky for the makeover. In any event, we were glad to be finished with our road trip and I couldn’t wait to spend more time with Arrow tomorrow.