Moving a Horse 2500 km!
Even the shortest of trips is stressful for horses, so the idea of moving my horse 2500 km scared me. Would he be ok? Would he be well taken care of? How much weight would he lose? Would he even make it? The good news is he did make it, and he is now all settled in! The trip took a total of seven days and when Luxi arrived, he looked fit and healthy! The part that was the most stressful was the preparation for the trip. The first step was to find a transportation company, which was quite easy, because riders from my club in Istanbul always buy horses from Europe and they always work with this one company, which I ended up working with as well. The next step was to have the vet come and collect Luxi’s blood sample. They needed to check his blood for certain diseases. Luckily, he tested negative for all the diseases and we could move onto the final step, which was to arrange an appointment with the state vet. The state vet had to come to check whether he was fit to travel and to write the “traces”, which is basically the route the driver of the truck would take to bring Luxi to his final destination. After the necessary paperwork was done, all I had to do was to wait for Luxi to be picked up. The reason why the trip took 7 days is because they make the horses rest a lot, which is great, because it’s exhausting for horses to stand in the truck for hours as they need to balance. The transportation company I worked with was great, because they sent updates all the time. Waiting for him to come was very exciting, but the moment that I will never forget is when the truck pulled up to the quarantine stable, where I was waiting for him, and the drivers opened the door and I saw him... he was tired, he was over it, but he had made it. My heart was beating so fast as they were letting him down the ramp. At that moment I knew once again that he would stay with me forever. I love him and so proud of him that he has done this long trip!
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