Conventional wisdom says never to look a gift horse in the mouth, but on a normal day seeing patients in the clinic, John Zic, M.D., found himself staring down at a literal gift horse, not quite sure how to react.
His patient Beth McDaniel and her husband, Roger, had just proudly presented Zic with a manila envelope. Inside he found a glossy 8×10 photo of a racehorse striding for the finish line.
“I thought they were giving me a horse,” he recalled, the shock still evident in his voice. “The first thought that ran through my head was ‘My wife is going to kill me’ because we have nowhere to put a horse.”