Introducing Gracie!

Spellbound has found her new BFF (best friend forever), and not a moment too soon. Some horses (all of ours, in fact) are herd-bound, which means you just can't separate them without a lot of anxiety and, sometimes, injury. With the death of Lisa two weeks ago, Spellbound was frantic then depressed at losing her old lady companion. Hayes' pony Hank was going for training and we knew we just couldn't leave Spell on her own. We figured best case scenario was that she'd die and the worst case was that in a panicked state she would run through the wire fence and get badly injured.
I was searching for a rescue companion horse and my friend Anne emailed me a ReRun Kentucky horse named Emporia. He is beautiful and I made an appointment to go see him at the farm, which is only an hour away.
Turns out the farm's owner is the stepdaughter of a woman I danced under in S.C. forever ago. It is truly a small world. Nicole mentioned she had a Quarter horse mare she would just give us if we liked her because the mare seemed to be unhappy as a camp horse.
Well, I certainly fell in love with Emporia. He is a gorgeous, gentlemanly gelding. Then Nicole introduced us to Gracie, a 22 year old chestnut, and that old girl is really sweet. Emporia is younger but has some lameness issues, Gracie is older but a suitable riding horse.
A dinner table discussion ensued and I was outvoted by Alex and Hayes to bring home Gracie. Straight up, I want to say that I don't like mares - I've had some bad experiences with them because, like all females, they get moody. I prefer the mental stability of geldings, but it seems I am destined to work out whatever issue this is with mares.
Nicole agreed to let us have Gracie and brought her over Friday. Gracie neighed at Spell and Hank and paced the fence looking at them from the spare pasture.
Less than two hours later, Hank loaded onto a trailer to get some mileage put on him and both Spell and Gracie seemed a little freaked out. I'd planned to move Gracie to the middle pasture so she and Spell could be next to and get used to each other without anyone getting hurt in asserting dominance, but as I was walking Gracie through the pasture, I just thought,"Let's see."
And those girls buddied up like they'd been friends all their lives. Spell even let Gracie eat out of her feed bucket first and enjoyed hay with her. They've walked to the back of the pasture to watch and listen to the flowing creek. Alex blanketed Gracie and let Chooj sit on her and she was nonplussed.

It makes me feel so good to see those girls together. I am deeply grateful to Nicole for giving her to us.
We stopped by the trainer's barn to check on Hank. He'd already been ridden the day before and was about to go out again. Scotty is going to work on getting him to stand quietly for mounting and get him to walk instead of his jiggy gait that he always has.