A good friend of mine asked me to accompany her on a drive to Idaho
delivering a mare she sold. I said I would under condition we would stop at the Nez Perce to see their Akhal-Teke's. I met her at 5am, loaded the mare and went to the ferry line. We boarded at 6am and after an hour and a half on the boat we unloaded and started driving. We made it to Boise by 5.30 pm. Delivered the mare, said our good-bye's and drove off to eat dinner and find a quite place to park the trailer and sleep in it.

The next day we drove on and arrived at the Nez Perce around 2pm. Rudy was there and showed us around. He had a 3 year old colt for sale. He had epiphysitis, his tendons in the front had been cut for it, his back legs were very swollen, and was very skinny. He'd been in a stall day and night for a long time, saturated with manure and urine. His feet had not been trimmed in a long time either. Against all common sense I told Rudy I'd buy him. First he did not believe me. He insisted his ferrier gave him a trim, unfortunately he did, cut him too short, and so now he couldn't walk.

We spent the night there in our trailer, and cleaned some stalls. The next morning at 8am the vet was there and performed a coggins test and looked him over. There wasn't much to do because he was so sore in his feet. At 10 am the vet called to say the coggins test was ready. I wrote Rudy a check, he wanted to hose the colt off with cold water so he wouldn't look so bad, but I refused, there was frost on the ground! So we loaded "Nez Perce Dream" in and drove by the clinic to pick up the test and we were off. We made good time and were able to catch the 8.30 pm ferry. We got home late, but we were home! I decided to call the colt Pascha. My vet came to look at him the next day, and thought he didn't look all that bad!

The first 2 days he hardly moved. Slowly he started to wake up to the world. He learned to eat grain, but still spits out carrots. After 2 weeks here he's not limping anymore, he doesn't choose the grass side on the driveway anymore but walks on the gravel. He is 3 years old, but he looks like he's 2. All I hope for is that he grows up healthy and sound.