I haven't found 'the one' quite yet. It's ok, I am in the early stages of looking. I'm just a bit surprised by what passes for broke these days, and I am wondering if I should re-negotiate my budget... Oh, it's so tempting to say 'what the hell' and buy the $12,000 do-everything-but-tie your shoes horse. Of course, I don't have that kind of budget anyways, but hey pipe dreams and all!
Some surprises: Ads can be extremely misleading, and although none of the horses were seriously misrepresented, there were definitely some surprising moments. Even more surprising was what happened with a horse I tried out. I tried the horse out, he was gorgeous. Petite, fine-boned and so shiny. A real beauty. His trainer rode him beautifully, and I was itching to get on. I rode him and he was a bit of a tough ride, not a horse you could get on and 'just ride' he was a thinking ride. I had to be aware of how my legs were, my seat, if my shoulders were tipping, getting tense, breathing, eyes up, etc etc. A bit of work, all in all. He shot off at the canter, which was a bit alarming.
My friend got on, a bit more of a novice rider but not inexperienced by any means. She trotted for a bit and the horse took off with her, she circled around and managed to get under control. We regrouped, she trotted off again, and the horse ran off with her like a bat out of hell. It was incredibly frightening, they whipped around the corners of the arena almost falling over and she bailed in the corner. The horse continued galloping and smashed into the metal gate at the end of the arena. If my friend has stayed on, that might have been her running full-tilt into the gate. I shudder to think of it. You could tell the horse had no brain in his head at all. He looked crazed and scared out of his freaking mind.
She was fine, the horse was fine. My mind, however, was not. I was not getting this horse, no way.
The trainer was stunned. She had never seen this kind of reaction with this horse, and with horses, unfortunately, there is a first time for everything.
We moved on, and I tried another horse. This horse had a great advertisement, was beautiful in person with no obvious issues. A really flashy animal, I had dreams of us showing up in the hunter ring. My trainer tried the horse and had some issues, and she is quite talented. I got on and man.... Let's just say I'm super glad I don't buy sight-unseen.
The horse rode like a drunk giraffe. I couldn't keep him between my legs and hands, iron-mouth, no stop, weaving all over the place. Safe as heck but riding was an exercise in serious frustration. The horse was not as trained as I was led to believe, and man, it was just a ridiculous ride. Forget it!
Fingers crossed I find something I like! I did try a pony that I quite enjoyed, it jumped nicely, was incredibly fat and out of shape though. It hadn't had a lot of miles out of the home ground, which is a red flag, and has been for sale for at least a year. Jury's still out on that one.
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