The pocket-searching peppermint fanatic has landed.

That’s what I let my friends know when my new horse, an off-track Thoroughbred named It Happened Again, arrived on Dec. 31.

I had hardly slept on Tuesday night, knowing “Happy” was making his way from Arkansas to Kentucky and arriving at the horse transport company’s barn in the middle of the night. Incidentally, that facility is less than a half-mile from my house, so it was all I could do to keep from taking an early morning jog to peer through the gates and see if I could catch a glimpse of a handsome chestnut coming off a trailer.

Alas, I waited until business hours to see him, when he was shipped from that facility to the farm where I’m boarding. Happy arrived at the barn just before I did, and when I got there I speed-walked down the aisle to find my horse in his stall. The moment reminded me a bit of one in a book I used to read and reread as a childÑA Very Young RiderÑwhere the main character, Vivi, finds her new pony, Fresh Paint, in the barn on Christmas morning É only I’m in my 30s and it was Dec. 31. And this Christmas present was one I got for myself