Dear Mr. Gainey: Thank you for your letter of the eighth.1 With the prospect of living for some years with such a beautiful Arabian as Galila, I am, of course, anxious that she has always the best of treatment, and particularly in her early years. At the farm such things as stable, stalls, feed and so on, are already provided. As yet, however, I have no pasture that is fenced suitably for horses.
I assume that until the colt is something well over a year old, she would spend most of her time, except for winter months, in pasture. What kind of grasses should be in such a field and what kind of fencing do you use? You see my own horse-raising days were with the old farm and mustang types of the Western Plains, and we did not give them the kind of treatment that Galila is going to get.
A specific question is: "Would a barbed wire fence expose her to danger, or do the Arabians instinctively avoid that type of fence?" My outside fences are made of lumber--my guess is something on the order of 3 1/2 feet high. Would you think that Galila would have a tendency to jump such a fence and get out onto the highway?2
You can see that no matter what I am going to provide in this regard, I have a fairly time-consuming job, especially as all the men on the stock farm are terribly busy in the spring. So, taking advantage of your kind offer to keep Galila, I should say that it would probably be late spring or early summer before we were equipped to handle her properly. I hope this won't inconvenience you.3
We have avilable a good veterinarian (or at least we think he is good) so that part of the filly's care should be satisfactory.
With warm regard, Sincerely
