......almost a tragedy

So things with the new boy went well for the first few weeks, Blue decided early on in the relationship he couldn't figure out quite what type of creature this hulking mammoth was, ergo he was beneath him and quite obviously not worthy of becoming an aide to his charismatic self. He had long hair for god's sake! (Blue is part of the immaculately trimmed to the point of perfection brigade) Thankfully the newbie had no interest in Blue or to be honest anything much other than food. He did appear a little shell shocked and quiet to the point of meekness in the first week he was with us, which we put down to the shock of the move and change of diet. Now for a name! I don't know about you, but I don't find that Quasi de Lunay particularly rolls off the tongue, and sounds all too close to Quasimodo. Which would fit him perfectly, but I'm not that mean. The gallivanting mother was now back off her holidays and after the initial pale faced greeting had quickly fallen for the not so handsome prince as per my cunning plan. She started musing over grandiose names like Arculf (a gaelic pilgrim or some such chaff, I think she could quite easily see herself galloping through the waves on her majestic grey steed). I favoured Tank. Still do, particularly after an all too regular toe-crushing foot stomp. To call him Arculf would have been like branding snoopy Count marqesta de La forna, so we came to a compromise of Pilgrim. Not either of our favourites, but better than Arculf! (not better than tank, but I'm not too bitter). After a week or so of owning 2 horses that were the complete antithesis of each other, we nearly went back to owning one. The mother arrived at the yard earlier than me to find Pilgrim drenched from head to toe like a hog on a roast, and groaning like a drunkard. I arrived to find him halfway into the sand school with his legs looking to buckle underneath him. It was colic. For those of you who don't know, horses cant be sick once they have eaten, and therefore any bad food ingested needs to go through the..erm...system. Unfortunately, should they eat something that disagrees with them, it can quite often ferment in their stomachs and produce a massive amount of gas and cause a blockage in their gut. This is extremely painful for them and they often lie down and thrash around to relieve the pain. There are several complications that can occur which I wont bore you with the details of, suffice to say its not a nice thing to see. I called the obligatory vet (first name terms) and after me rather embarrassingly wailing and blubbing down the phone at him he managed to ascertain where I was and would be with me in an hour. An HOUR!?! Surely there is some kind of teleportation device that can get a professional to an emergency immediately, does he fail to realise ones horse is the most important on the planet?! So we waited, with Pilgrim becoming progressively worse and in more pain.