Hokkaido Horse Racing Story

Like a rental car.

Many horse enthusiasts come to Hokkaido during the summer vacation to visit the ranches in the Hidaka area.

Kitano guessed that they probably wanted to ask for directions.

Thinking of this, the two young men walked into the clinic carrying something together.

"Doctor, please save Kintaro!"

One of them said anxiously as he carried the rather large Husky onto the counter.

"What's going on?"

Putting down the magazine in his hand, Kitano asked with a puzzled look.

The Husky in front of me looked a little overweight, and when he lay down, you could even see obvious fat around his waist.

Other than that, he looks pretty healthy.

He was even staring at the cookies on the table, drooling.

“And I’m…”

"It ate the buttercups—"

Kitano's expression instantly turned serious.

"sure?"

he asked.

The goldenseal plant contains protoanemonin, which can cause severe irritation to the oral mucosa and digestive tract if accidentally ingested.

The clinical symptoms are redness and swelling of the mouth, tongue, and throat with a noticeable burning sensation, frequent salivation, vomiting, diarrhea, and loss of appetite.

Now is the growing season for buttercups. In previous years, Kitano would encounter many cases of people accidentally eating buttercups at this time.

However, he didn't expect that the first case this year would be a Husky.

"Look, this should be Buttercup, right?"

The man raised his phone and enlarged a picture.

Kitano leaned his head in for a closer look, then said expressionlessly after a moment, "This is a dandelion."

He could still tell the difference between a dandelion and a buttercup.

"Ah?"

The two people holding the Husky were both stunned.

"But, Kintaro, he's been acting like he has no appetite since he ate this."

One person asked with some uncertainty.

"Could it be possible that it was already full at that time?"

Kitano took out a small biscuit and dangled it over the dog's nose.

Kintaro immediately opened his mouth wide and wagged his tail vigorously.

"What about frequent drooling?"

The other pointed to the thin transparent thread that continued to extend from the tip of Kintaro's tongue.

"That might have been because I had just exercised. But now."

Kitano stuffed the biscuit into his mouth.

The tail that was wagging continuously suddenly stopped.

"Wang Wang Wang!"

The Husky buried its head in the man's hands and let out a cry of obvious grievance.

"Maybe he's starting to get hungry."

"Of course, if you're worried, you can also measure your temperature or check if there are any oral problems."

Kitano took out the small flashlight again, opened the Husky's mouth and shone it for a while.

“Very healthy.”

He put away the flashlight.

“I-I see—”

The two looked at each other, and after a while they awkwardly took the Husky away from the counter.

After the two left, Kitano took out the magazine again.

Although this wasted a lot of time, I didn't feel angry.

As a practicing veterinarian, it is his responsibility to treat patients.

The two men walked into the clinic out of trust.

but--

It's really time to consider changing to a more recognizable sign.

Outside the clinic, the faint chirping of one or two cicadas could be heard at first, and then the sound began to grow louder.

Picking up the air conditioner remote control, Kitano turned it down another degree.

Chapter 24: The court takes the lead

In the afternoon, Kitano, who was about to close the business early, received a call from Kimura.

"If possible, how about you come to my ranch this Sunday?"

After a pause, Kimura said, as if deliberately lowering his voice, "My ranch has a few foals with very interesting bloodlines. I wonder if you're interested?"

"An interesting foal. I'll go take a look."

After hanging up the phone, Kitano recalled Ogawa Masaru's advice a few days ago.

What Kimura said on the phone should be a situation of "first taking the lead in the court".

There are two different types of court precedent.

The first is active attraction.

When the owner determines that a foal has the potential to become a famous horse if it continues to grow, he may negotiate privately with the ranch and buy the racehorse at a relatively high price without waiting for the auction.

The second type is a more passive approach.

If the ranch is not confident in the pedigree of its own foals, or is not optimistic about the foals' physical condition and growth prospects, it will contact familiar horse owners and try to make a move early to reduce losses.

Of course, it may also be due to the concern that the ranch may fail to sell at auction, thus affecting the reputation of their own ranch.

From the content of Kimura's words, it is not difficult to judge that the second, more negative, approach is most likely the one he took.

However, Kitano still planned to go over and take a look.

This is an opportunity to gain experience in horse observation before the selected auction in Hokkaido from the 22nd to the 24th of this month.

Just think of it as a warm-up for the selection meeting.

Then, open the Assets section of the System Panel.

[Horse: 1]

Ranch Owned: 0

【Clubs held: 0】

【Total assets: 109 million yen】

It is certainly worth being happy about returning to positive assets after a long absence, but it is definitely not possible to participate in the selection meeting with the cash on hand now.

This amount of money is not enough to buy another white horse.

Time to get some more amulets in exchange for cash.

Of course, for now, it is limited to green amulets.

After four months, most of the amulets accumulated by completing daily tasks disappeared.

Then, I bought three [Detectors] in the mall.

After completing the preparations, there were less than 50 green amulets left.

On the remaining day of the week, the frequency of medical visits suddenly increased.

In addition to common seasonal diseases, the incidence of ingestion of poisonous weeds has also unexpectedly increased.

Every year, livestock farmers in Hokkaido spend a lot of effort to remove various poisonous weeds that may threaten the safety of livestock.

Manual removal, spraying of chemicals, deep plowing, and construction of canals——

Even with all the measures taken, these tenacious plants will still grow quietly in corners that the ranchers cannot pay attention to.

Induced vomiting, gastric lavage, intravenous drip. By the time Kitano came to his senses, it was already Sunday.

The alarm on my phone rang on time.

He reached out a hand from under the quilt and turned off the alarm clock. After about half a minute, Kitano slowly sat up from the bed.

The time is 7:31 in the morning.

Even on his day off, he had no intention of getting up late.

Compared to taking a few extra hours of rest occasionally, Kitano believes that a regular lifestyle is better for the body.

What's more, there is a scheduled itinerary in the afternoon.

After washing up, he ate breakfast while watching TV series on his mobile phone.

Breakfast was fried eggs, toast and hot milk, and it had been a long time since we had last night's leftovers.

After breakfast, Kitano silently memorized the position of the progress bar.

An episode of All Creatures, which lasts over 40 minutes, often takes two or three mornings to watch.

However, rather than fast-forwarding through the show like a pelican swallowing a fish, he would rather enjoy the entire TV series at its original speed.

After spending a few more minutes washing the dishes, Kitano sat on the sofa and picked up a veterinary journal.

Before I knew it, two hours had disappeared as if stolen by a monster.

[Perform ability training: 116/30 minutes (completed)]

While stretching, I received the task reward.

After changing into casual clothes, Kitano chose to walk out instead of driving.

After walking through the empty streets for more than ten minutes, we arrived at the convenience store.

In addition to regular purchases, he also has to confirm the status of his passbook again.

After carefully counting the long string of zeros on the last page of the deposit and confirming that it was correct, Kitano went home carrying two full plastic bags.

I sorted the groceries and put them in the refrigerator, barely finishing them until lunchtime.

Although he often deals with various medicines, he is actually not very good at organizing things.

After lunch, he changed into formal clothes again.

Driving along the romantic streets of Youjun, you can see the azure sea on one side and a vast expanse of neat green land on the other.

Forty minutes later, we arrived at Xinsheng Ranch.

Unlike most other ranches in Liusha County that have signs to identify them, Xinsheng Ranch is identified by a huge stone with the ranch's name engraved on it.

In addition, there is a whole row of decorative stones piled up on the outskirts of the pasture near the canal.

"Welcome, Mr. Kitano!"

When he got off the car, Mr. Kimura was walking towards him with several employees and greeted him warmly.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kimura."

The two shook hands and quickly let go.

"Look, it's really hot. Why don't we go in first?"