Kid following Bruno around the arena.

I overheard Bruno and Kid having a heated discussion as they stood in the paddock last night.

Bruno is a six-year old, off-the-track thoroughbred, who ran four races and placed second in one.  He has suffered from some hoof ailments that we surgically corrected at Texas A&M Vet Hospital.  He is just getting back to work and has yet to prove himself in any discipline.  Bruno has been called “startling beautiful” by the Off-Track Thoroughbred website and is a huge 17.2+ hands tall.

Kid is a 32-year-old, off the track Quarter Horse, who was very speedy on the track, went on to do some team penning at the national level and also was a winning barrel horse in the Houston area up to age 20.  He has done everything we ever asked him to do from showing English, jumping, trail riding, and hauling my grandbabies around. He is 15.2 hands high.

Bruno remarked to Kid about his slowness in the arena, “you are so slow you can’t keep up with me when we are just walking!”.

“Well, at least I won on the track when I ran!” said Kid back to Bruno.

“Sure on that tiny little quarter-mile track!  Run a mile and a fourth and come from behind to be second, then let’s see how good you are!” retorted Bruno.

“You couldn’t even get out of the starting gate! You had to run from behind because you couldn’t untangle those daddy-long legs and break with the rest of the horses.  I could beat you out of the starting gate today.   In fact, I could probably still stay with you for at least two strides.”  Kid said snidely back to Bruno.

“What a joke!  My stride is over 15 feet in length when I am not trying, you would never stay with me for even one foot!” answered Bruno.

“Well, at least I had multiple careers, race horse, team penner, barrel racer, horse about town, English, western, I did it all!. What did you do, place in one race and have some vets work on you?  GEEZ!”, said Kid.

“What did you do again? Something where you chased a bovine creature and then pushed it somewhere?  What kind of talent does that take?  I could do that easy!”  Bruno remarked looking disgusted at Kid.

“Really?  I would like to see your big, ol’self running, sorting and stopping as fast as a young cow. What about my barrel racing?  I was older but still the fastest in the whole Houston area, could you do that?  Wait, no, you couldn’t! You are too big to get around a turn without circling it 20 feet out.” Kid challenged, looking up at Bruno.

“Oh, my gosh, really, running around some trash cans?  At least I ran races in respected locales like Aqueduct and Belmont. How dumb is barrel racing?  To be a track runner you must have endurance, strength and be fast.”  Bruno noted

“You ran at those tracks like twice.  I ran on the race track too and won! And you need to have all those qualities you mentioned to be good at barrel racing.  You are big but you are so silly sometimes!” Kid said wisely.

“I am going to be a top-notch jumper!  You will see”, said Bruno.

“Okay, I guess we can all be surprised.  You might actually accomplish something in your life, you never know”, said Kid.

Snow watching Bruno and Kid.

“So, look at that white pony over there, I bet he never ran on any race track”, Bruno said, quickly changing the subject.

“Pick on the white pony, classy move, big guy!  But you are right, he never ran on a track anywhere.  At least we got that, don’t we Bruno?”, Kid conceded and ended the conversation.