WHAT? ANOTHER HORSE? Are you crazy?

Guess I am, crazy, that is, because get another horse is exactly what I did.  Not just any horse, mind you, but a miniature horse, trained to drive.  I got her at Bruce's urging, if you can believe that!  You see, Bruce likes to play Santa at Christmas.  This past Christmas, while Bruce was playing Santa for the hospital employees' children, friends of mine (who work in the Lab at the hospital) brought their miniature horses and gave cart rides in the parking lot, and one miniature was inside the hospital getting pics with Santa and the children.  I was working late, and went down to see Bruce as Santa, and, of course, I had to go outside and see the mini's all hooked up to their carts.  Well, my friend, Lisa, forced - yes - FORCED me to take one of the mini's for a spin around the parking lot.  That was all it took - I was hooked!  What made it even better, is Bruce/Santa came out to get a pic in the cart, and he even took the mini for a drive - and enjoyed it!  So we figured Santa would need his own little mini to come and visit the children next year.  After all, the reindeer have to stay at the North Pole until Christmas Eve!

I didn't need much urging to start horse shopping!  There is nothing better than horse or tack shopping, you see.  I had definate  ideas on what I wanted, though.  First, it had to be cart broke - I don't want to have to train anything else around here!  Second, it needed to be a larger mini - over 32" at the withers - since it would have to cart Santa/Bruce around.  I quickly found several on Dream Horse, and my favorite was Sugar, who came complete with her harness and cart.  Here is a pic of Sugar from her sale page:

What could be better for Santa than a pure white horse?  What was even better, is that Sugar was in Half Moon Bay, California, just a few miles down the road from where Lisa grew up.  PLUS, her mother still lived there, so we could stay overnight at her house when we went to get Sugar.  So, Lisa and her daughter, Leann, and I took a weekend and made a road trip to Pacifica, California.  I drove my truck and trailer over the Pass to Sacramento, where Lisa took over and drove the rest of the way.  She not only knew where she was going, she was used to driving a horse trailer in the crazy traffic outside of San Francisco.  Here is a video of our drive on the outskirts of San Francisco:

  

After arriving at Lisa's mother's house in Pacifica, we went sightseeing, riding the Pacific Coast Hiway in her mother's convertible BMW.  Yes, it was mid-January and we had the top down!

The next morning, we drove an hour down the Pacific Coast Highway to where Sugar was located.  They were at the top of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  While beautiful, there was no place to ride, and I was missing my desert.  Anyway, Sugar's cart had a wheel problem, and it had one good tire, and the other was only on the rim.  So, there was no way I could test drive Sugar on a rim.  However, Leann was small enough that she probably wouldn't ruin the rim if she rode in the cart.  So, Lisa did a bit of ground driving Sugar first, then allowed Leann to drive her.  Leann did a great job of putting Sugar thru her paces with Lisa giving directions.  Then, Lisa deemed Sugar safe for me!  Here is the video of Sugar's test drive:

We loaded Sugar in the trailer and headed home!  I was now a mini owner.  Lisa drove most of the way, thank goodness, as I didn't know where I was going and Lisa had more experience driving a horse trailer in all that traffic.  Here is a little video of coming back over Donner Pass on I-80:

The road is worse than it looks.  I also find it amusing that just the day before on the coast, we were riding in a convertible with the top down!

Stay tuned for mini adventures!