Kissing Frogs
It is once again time for me to go out and kiss a bunch of frogs. Yes, in the world of horse trading one must buy and sell horses. Just like buying a used car; you never "really" know what you are going to get. Something the owner is used to and accepts as OK behavior, may not be what I consider good and sometimes these traits don’t surface until long after the deal is done. Most behaviors can be trained out of a horse, but some never can.
With each horse I buy I learn more questions to ask that I never thought of until I had a problem. It used to be that I would take less than an hour to assess a new horse, but now I take a couple hours and then I ask for a trial period so I can hire a pro and a vet to do an assessment.
Oddly I’m more suspicious of people that tell me the horse they are selling is perfect and has no vices than I am of someone who just says they don’t know or they bring a vice to my attention. One must filter out all the extraneous input when buying a horse, and most of all never fall in love with the beauty of a horse. The beautiful horses are usually the most squirrelly.
Oh well, it’s time to pucker up and kiss some frogs, again and hope that we can get this round over with quickly.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 5:09 AM
11 Comments:
so you buy and sell horses? why? what do you do with them?
Why do you put yourself through this? Just sell the damn horses and change your barn and stables over to something else like a woodworking studio or something......
Maybe those "perfect" horses ARE perfect for the guy selling (but then why are they selling?). I call Blue perfect all the time, but I'm aware of his faults. Lots of people would be disappointed in aspects of his behavior. He doesn't neck-rein as well as he could. Since I never get him above a foxtrot, you can hardly force him into a canter now. He doesn't back up well. I'm sure all these things could be "fixed", but since they don't bother me, I leave him alone.
With the price of feed around here, you can't give a horse away. Have you noticed the prices dropping there? (price of horses, to be clear)
We ride them. We always look for perfection. Sometimes it is futile and horses are not a good fit for us. I am content with a safe, willing horse, but my wife requires horses that are safe, calm, no food issues, good feet, are willing and honest, walk, trot and canter comfortably, fit, can side pass, can be turned by their bit, by neck reigning or by leg pressure. We want them to come to a complete stop by reigns, by a change in the seat position or by the Whoa command. We like them to not want to kill the vet or the farrier. They have to be able to go willingly into a horse trailer, leave the barn, not bite, cross rivers and walk down the road and not freak out when a log truck drives past. Must play well with others. We've seen and owned $2,000 horses that fit the above description and we've seen $20,000 that don't.
We look for horses that have to be sold for economic reasons, or because someone is moving or going away to college or because of the owners poor health. My present horse came from a guy who died in a logging accident.
Syd, the ones they are giving away out here aren't even worth the price of free. Mostly pasture pets that have little or no training or are so old that they usually throw in a shovel when you take the horse.
Throw in a shovel? HAHAHAHA!
We bought a horse from a sale one time that we think had been drugged. The calm, cool guy turned into a nutcase two days later.
I prefer horses that are like me- a little attitude and not afraid to make a few leaps.
Bayou, sometimes they bleed them, too. There are all sorts of tricks, dark arenas, work them out until they tire out, doping...I've seen it all, but I'm sure I can still be fooled.
Out here on the farm, gramma insisted on buying one horse for the kids to ride.
Turns out the the horse's name is Blaze and Bob.
These two horses were for sale by the same owner and the two had been together since birth. Gramma wouldn't think of splitting them up.
One of these days, I'll get some pics of blaze and bob loaded to my blog:
http://tenasillahe.wordpress.com/
In the mean time, Guy, I have been on the outskirts reading your blog for a long time. I sincerely appreciate your writing style and always look forward to chuckling.
Keep up the good writing please.
g
G, thanks for popping and for your kind words. Welcome to blogging. What can be better than a horse named Bob. I'd bet that Bob is the crazier horse of the two. I have a Bob thing about the name Bob. I'll have to dig out my Mighty Mo story for you.
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