Road Trip!

In a little more than a week we're off to Massachusetts! I think we are all very excited to be there. However, we are DREADING the drive. First, if you've ever been on a road trip with your whole family in a small sedan, you will understand what the horses are going through back there. There's a lot of 'I'm not touching you', 'I'm hot', and 'Are we there yet?'. Plus it is hot back there. We're pretty lucky that we don't have to hear most of it. Just the occasional 'bam' when someone kicks the trailer.

So how do we prepare Smellie for a long stressful drive?

First, prep starts well before we load the horses onto the trailer. Two or three days before we leave Elliot starts on a full tube of Gastro-Guard which he will continue through the trip and a day or so after we arrive.

Elliot will also start on mineral oil a couple days before we leave. He usually eats it pretty well in his food (one of Elliot's best traits), but sometimes we even have the vet tube him with a gallon of mineral oil to make sure he gets enough. This keeps everything moving as it should since his eating and drinking won't be normal for such a long period.

Betsy and I plan to drive through the night so that we keep it as cool as possible. Even with all the windows and vents open, it gets hot in that tin box with six horses on board. Driving in the night will make it a little more pleasant for the horses, though perhaps not so pleasant for us. We will also do the trip in two legs. The first will be from Starkville to Lexington, VA (about 12 hours) where we will stay at the Virginia Horse Park for a night and let the horses rest. More importantly we will let us rest. Even switching off driving, it's a long haul. The second leg will be from Lexington, VA to Sherborn, MA (about another 12 hours). We drive slow and stop fairly often so it may take us longer.

We're pretty lucky that our horses are used to traveling. Our closest event is about six hours away we're all used to getting in the 'magic box' (as a friend calls it) and taking marathon drives. Still, traveling is hard on horses. An hour in the trailer, is actually more work for a horse than an hour of riding because the horses don't know when we are stopping and starting or turning which means they're constantly shifting their weight to stay on their feet. Our trailer is air-ride equipped which provides a little nicer ride, but I would hazard a guess that is still not cushy.

We do not ship long distances with hay. First they do not have access to water and it seems like it is asking for trouble. Second, hay bags and hay are dusty. 12 hours of breathing in dust on top of an already stressed immune system is a good way to give a horse pneumonia.

Out truck gets about 1 hour (give or take) every quarter tank of gas with a full load or horses. This means we're stopping every four hours, though lets be honest we're stopping more often than that to pee with the amount of caffeine we're consuming. At every stop we peek in on them and offer some water. A lot of times Smellie only wants to splash me with it, but I feel better for having done it. He's much happier about the jelly beans that I also sneak in for him.

The dogs don't seem to mind the trip. They just pass out in the back. I wish I was a dog sometimes. Well, I wish I was my dog sometimes.