A few weeks ago I was reading a completely unrelated topic over in H/J when somebody posted a link to a horse at the Bowie Livestock Auction. If you’ve never looked in that site, enter at your own risk. https://www.bowietexaslivestock.com/product-category/odwyer-horses/
The horse the COTHer posted was adorable but not my type, but I scrolled through the other listings and looked at a filly who was supposed to be a 3-yr-old. I watched her trot video over and over.
Bay filly Bowie
I’m a 57-year-old lifelong horsewoman. Hardened. Professional.
I dreamed about that filly.
In my defense and from a hardened professional standpoint, I laid out her positives. Bay with just the right amount of white, clean legged, good angles in her shoulder and hip. Not coughing. Not afraid of the flag handler. A low, sweeping, loose pretty trot in a small concrete pen. A price tag of $780.
According to her listing I had a week to figure something out. I talked to knowledgeable horse friends, none of whom attempted to discourage me 
I researched quarantine facilities and shipping costs from Texas to Virginia and checked every day to see if she’d been purchased, mostly hoping that she had. I cleared it with my DH, explaining that yes I was dipping into madness and no it probably wasn’t curable.
I texted the number at Bowie and they got right back to me. They run a quarantine facility a mile away from the auction house and they’d be happy to arrange shipping. Here’s the cost and our handy dandy PayPal link.
I reached out again to my knowledgeable friends and COTH acquaintances who continued to happily enable. I hit the BUY NOW button and drank 
I got a few updates while the filly was in quarantine so I at least knew she wasn’t dying. They require that you also purchase a dose of wormer and antibiotic which is supposed to be administered the day the horse enters quarantine. I have no way to know if this happened or not. I also purchased a halter since she was reportedly not halter broke and I didn’t want her arriving to my farm without at least a halter. I drank some more and waited for the two week quarantine to be over. At the end of two weeks she had a dry nose, no cough, and a normal temperature so they arranged shipping. I got a call from the shipper this past Wednesday telling me she was on the trailer and headed to Virginia. On Thursday she had been transferred from one rig to another (they backed them up together and pushed her from one into the other) and she arrived at my farm 7:30 pm. The driver was a young woman and very kind. She backed her rig right up to the gate of my isolation paddock and then it took us about fifteen minutes to convince the filly to get off.
I was able to put my hands on her, switch her halter over to a leather one, and put on a fly mask. She has a gash on her face and she let me smear some meds on it. Then she drank a ton of water.
The next morning she allowed me to catch and then lead her into my isolation stall. She stood at the door for a few minutes before deciding to follow me in.
She’s tiny, has a horrible itchy flaky coat, and most likely will always have an interesting scar on her nose. There’s no way she’s a three year old.
But she’s already brighter eyed, she’s friendly and curious, and our journey has begun.
Her name is “Note to Self” aka “Nosey”.
I have a vet appointment scheduled and a DNA test kit coming from the Jockey Club to see if she can be identified. The guy from Bowie said that she came in with six other babies from a farm in Kentucky.
One got lucky. 
)
