You don't know where you're going....

...if you don't know where you've been.

7 people, each with different backgrounds and motivations, same job title. What brought us here? Well, feeling somewhat introspective today, I decided to post today something on the early beginnings.

You see, my mother wanted me to be a lawyer. I have resisted this idea more then a Clostridium spore in hard times, and eventually went on to become a vet.

What else, if ever since I can remember (and this is precisely 1982) I was completly drawn and fascinated by 4 legged creatures. The slightly burgeois picture shows me convinced that even they didn't move, those horses could really get into motion IF they so wished, so I was pretty much on top of the world there and then. (Predeal, summer of 1982).

Growing up on a the grey and concrete city that Bucharest is, contact with this fantastic

creatures wasn't easy, especially all equine creatures that owned without doubt, supremacy. Still dreaming at a lawyer daughter, my mother had the brilliant idea around 1984 onwards to take me once a year, while in holiday at the Black Sea, for a few hours to visit an ride at the Stud in Mangalia. (actually located in Venus but minor detail).

This is an Arabian stud located very close to the Black Sea, I can truly say the day spent there was the high rise of the whole year, a fantastic land populated with 300 plus horses, imagine

that. I even got to ride, or so I like to believe I suppose, as you can see from the picture on the left, and thank God, they were able to find some nice quiet Arab horses which were available for the public. Not officially of course, but for some extra monetary attention, but we are all human beings, right?

To the day, and may it be good or bad, going to a horse stud is the subconscious equivalent of an incredible experience, althou really the bitter truth is that romanian studs aren't all that great anyway, due to huge financial constraints, poor management, and so on. In the student years, I actually visited all the national studs, evenly spreaded all over Romania, even the most exotic one, in Lucina, that lies very close to the border of Ukrain, breeds Hutul horses and is so wild, that wolfes still manage to grab a few foals every winter.

Promise to post later on a whole story and pictures upon the romanian horse studs, but for now...

You'd expect me to be now a horse vet I suppose, well, the complicated ways of life and jobs....NO,NO, NO, I am not a lawyer but more into the small animal practice so far. The fascination is still there thou, just as unchanged.

andreika's