Posts Tagged ‘FHOTD’
Guest Post: Proper Equine Etiquette for Buying a Horse
I had a recent conversation with a friend who makes a living out of buying, training and selling horses. She has come across more than few riders that have come to ride her sale horses with no intention of buying but were looking to see what it was like to ride her particular horses. So this brought me to today’s post about what I feel is proper etiquette when it comes to buying a horse.
When buying, training and selling horses becomes your job and main source of income the phone call from a potential client can be exciting and misleading. We may have all experienced the riders who make a habit of coming out and “test riding” horses just because they want to know what a $50,000 horse feels like and they have no intention of buying the horse. It becomes a waste of your time and a frustrated effort.
For those of you who are not into training and sales, you may not what exactly goes into the preparation for the potential sale. Most good sale barns will have all current vetting paperwork ready for viewing (i.e current vaccinations, coggins, x-rays ect.), they have the horse groomed at show quality and already tacked up for you ready to ride. There are several hours that go into preparing for your visit and most of the time they’re whole day is rearranged just so they can devote their individual attention to you.
So what can you do as a potential buyer to prepare for your visit without wasting your time or the sellers?
Well, start off by being realistic; don’t try to buy a $50,000 horse if you cannot afford it. Instead get all your finances straight and have a solid number you’re ready to hand them in cash. If you saved $5000 for a horse, then only look for a horse and try out a horse that is $5000 or less.
Be serious about buying a horse. Horses a huge commitment and they require a lot of attention and have many needs. Sometimes your board is the cheapest part of your new best friend. Be ready to not only be physically committed but financially committed too!
Don’t buy a horse that doesn’t meet your discipline needs. That horse may not work out for you and you will most likely end up giving back the horse to its seller because you are not satisfied with what you thought you were buying. For example, my mother took out a loan to buy a $35,000 ex-foxhunter to make into a dressage horse (I told her not to do it because the horse hated the arena and never wanted to be in a frame and only enjoyed hacking out) and he would buck and kick and lash out whenever you tried to do dressage with him. She was at a dressage show with him and when they entered the ring to start the test, half way through it he jumped out of the arena and tried to take off. He had his own thoughts of what he wanted his job to be and being a dressage horse was not one of them. Lol.
If you have a trainer, BRING THEM WITH YOU!!! Don’t come out alone or with your BFF whose knowledge of horses is “they look so pretty.” It’s a big waste of time if you come out to ride and then say “Well, I need to talk to my trainer first and then I’ll give you a call.” We all
know what that means and we know you won’t be calling us. So while we are thanking you for coming out we are really thinking “Thank you for wasting my time and my employee’s time”
Don’t lie about your riding ability. You should never feel embarrassed or little by how well you ride. Everyone is at all stages of their riding and sellers don’t want to waste the time trying to prepare and sell you a horse that is going to end up being too much for you. If you’re only a beginner rider then try to find a school horse that’s ready to retire from lessons but has plenty of miles left in him to take you where you want to go. You’re not doing yourself or your horse
any favors by being a novice rider trying to ride an advanced horse.
Come ready to ride. Bring your helmet, come in riding attire and whatever else you need that shows you’re ready to get on that horse!
Making simple phone calls to the seller confirming your appointment is just good manners. So if you’re running late or have an emergency don’t just not show up, call and reschedule. Keep the communication open between you and the seller. If you’re no longer interested cause you found something else be honest about it. A lot of people try several different horses but we all know when you find the one there is no need to keep looking. I sometimes compare it to finding the
perfect wedding dress. The dress that makes you cry the words “I love the way this one makes me feel” is most likely the dress you’re going to buy.
So to sum it all up proper etiquette is important when buying a horse. Be prepared, be honest and be communicative. And most of all don’t come out with the intention of wasting someone’s time. It’s a small horse world and your name will travel fast as “the rider who only test rides horses but never buys.” Be classy not trashy!
——–
The person who submitted this post didn’t include whether they wanted to remain anonymous or not so, if it’s your post and you want people to know you wrote it, please let us know and we’ll give you credit! 
——-
We’ve had a request from a reader who is writing a research paper on genetic disorders (ie. HYPP) and is conducting a survey in preparation. If you have a minute, please help her out by filling out this survey.
Why idiots shouldn’t own horses
Three year old paint not broke wild stud .This one has all his oats .The meek need not inquire .Raised this colt from birth will let you pet him and feed him thats about it .Cant get any more honest.Needs EVERYTHING.$100.00 CASH ONLY .SERIOUS INQIURES BY EMAIL THANK YOU PRICE IS FIRM.
It’s idiots like this guy (Yes, I’m making what some may call an “assumption”, that the seller is male. I, however, prefer to think of it as a logical deduction based upon past experience of reading lots and lots and lots of craigslist ads!) who create problem horses and then dump them. To clarify, for anyone out there who’s thinking of getting into breeding: “raising” a horse involves putting more training into the horse than just petting and feeding. (Please read the following as if in a loud, fake, stage whisper) Psst! Neither of those require any training or effort. Your horse is likely feral because you put so very little time or effort into him. From the rest of the horse-world: thanks a ton, you giant douchebag.
It’s sad because this little guy looks like he may be cute. That is to say there’s no overt fugliness; no weiner-dog-esque back, his hind legs don’t appear to be camped under… aaand that’s all we can guess at based on the photos. But, considering what typically passes as a “suitable” stud on craigslist, this guy is a freaking GQ model! *facepalm*
I guess the one good thing you could say about this ad is that the writer freely admits the horse “needs everything”. He actually acknowledges that the horse needs work – perhaps somewhere in his subconscious, deep down, buried under sports stats and fond Playboy memories, he knows he didn’t do right by this horse.
Marion County seizure
Being out of the state does not excuse you from the responsibilities of horse ownership that you readily, if not eagerly, accepted when you took possession of the horses!
Marion County deputies recover eight malnourished horses from “deplorable” conditions in South Salem field
There are some out there who would say that the out-of-state owner did her duty by making arrangements with a local person to care for the horses.
To this I say: Bullshit
You can’t just pay someone and be done with it. You have a duty of care to check in once in a while and make sure your hired help are, oh I don’t know, helping! Let’s see if we can’t relate this to a non-horse world scenario. Say, for example, you’re a manager at McDonalds. You hire people to do a job, you train ‘em, give ‘em some direction, whatever. Once all that is in place, do you then leave for Costa Rica? No! For better or worse, it’s your job to make sure the job is done, because ultimately it is your responsibility!
Then, of course, is the issue of there being no shelter. That’s something the owner would have found out about when she went to rent the place. Again, you can come up with a bunch of lame scenarios where the owner isn’t to blame, but let’s be honest; if you’re a responsible animal owner, any type of animal, you’re going to inspect the place you intend for your animal to live, prior to it living there! So yes, dear readers, she knew and she was ok with it.
What about the land owner? Did they rent out 50 acres to someone they knew would bring horses onto the property? Knowing full well there was no shelter available for the animals?
I know people who rent out a condo and they make sure to do an inspection at least quarterly. And those people are sharing multiple walls with other tenants! There’s some accountability there! But for someone to rent out 50 acres and not schedule inspections? Of course, I’m making a judicious leap and assuming they didn’t inspect the property and had no knowledge of the starving and deceased horses (at the very least that would decrease the property value, right?) on their land.
None of the above is meant to excuse the behavior of the “caretaker”. I just feel that their involvement, or lack thereof, is obvious. They are, after all, the ones who willfully and cruelly neglected all aspects of these poor horse’s care.
So who’s responsible? The owner for not checking in? The landlord for willfully turning a blind eye? Certainly the caretaker is. Any way you slice it, body scores of 0.5 don’t happen overnight. Not to mention six – SIX! – dead horses on the property. It’ll be interesting (and presumably horrifying) to see whose horses those turn out to be…
I don’t claim to be an expert in decomposing animals, but it would seem to me that their being in different stages of decomp means that they died at different times, right? Still with me? Ok then, doesn’t that sound like they probably died from starvation? Logic being that different animals use up fats stores quicker than others and that alpha horse(s) likely chased the others off what little food they managed to find. This is supported by the fact that the remaining horses were found with body scores ranging from 0.5 to 1.5. Albeit that’s not much of a range.
The little bit of reassurance we can take from this latest episode of horse abuse? The swift and effective action of Marion County – they acted immediately upon receiving the phone call about the horses, got a vet out, blanketed them, brought food and water and got them the hell outa there ASAP. Good job guys and thanks from all the horse lovers!
For pictures of the poor remaining horses, check out our Facebook page.
For information on the rescued horses and/or how you can help them, check out Strawberry Mountain Mustangs (took in 5 of the surviving horses) and United SPCA (took in 3 of the horses)
Guest Post: Cross Training
“Cross Training”. By definition this is when the athlete steps away from his regular discipline and works at something else, and is meant to have physical or mental benefits to the athlete. In the equine world, the term “cross training” is usually very narrow. You will not see a western pleasure QH trainer taking his horse around the arena in saddle seat tack and a double bridle. No, cross training means taking your equine athlete and doing Dressage. (For dressage horses, cross training usually means “take them for a trail ride”.)
To me, dressage is just another horse sport/entertainment discipline, on the same plane as western pleasure, saddle seat, jumping, driving, endurance. I think dressage puts the horse in the most gorgeous frame of all those activities, and it has the ability to move me to tears. But that’s all it is — another horse activity. Please stop trying to convince me that doing Dressage (capital “D”) is going to make my horse “better”. You’ll have to prove it to me.
This has been bothering me since the equine chiropractor came to our barn for his regular multi-horse visit. He worked on my competitive trail horse first and the visit went as it always did — he had to search to find anything wrong with my horse, pronounced him sound and pain-free. Then onto the dressage insructor’s personal horse and 2 of her clients’ horses. All of which were a mess of sore hocks, sore backs, sore polls, sore necks… The trainer made the mistake of pronouncing me “lucky” to have such a good horse. And I made the mistake of saying that I wasn’t lucky, but that I was asking my horse to do something quite natural and did not in any way influence his way of going. And she made the mistake of saying my horse would be even better if I did Dressage arena work with him….
Somebody prove it to me. Dressage (and Dr. Deb Bennett’s wonderful conformation articles in Equus) is based on what the human’s idea of “beauty” is. A stallion puffed up with an arched neck, vertical face, tucked-under hindquarters, collected movements, everyone agrees that’s when a horse is at his most beautiful. Dressage is getting a horse to assume those poses on command and hold them for extended periods of time. Dr. Bennett “proves” that dressage helps a horse because his build will change as a result of the work. Of course his build will change — you are asking him to do new physical things with his body. But that does not mean the change in build is a “good” thing even though the change in build appears more beautiful to our eyes. No one confuses a ballet dancer with a female body builder, yet their builds are each perfect for their disciplines and each would fail if they looked like the other. If moving in such a fashion is truly better for the horse, then you would think natural selection would have produced wild horses moving from waterhole to waterhole in a “balanced” dressage-like manner.
So I will consider dressage to be simply another horse activity. I will continue to believe that my competitive trail horses do not need dressage work to help them trot down the trails. I will continue to let them decide the best way to move to finish the task safe and sound. They will continue to get the winter off with no arena work. Stop trying to convince me that Dressage work would make my horse perform better.
Thanks for allow me the opportunity to voice my opinion!
By: KT
—————————-
I wanted to post this because I think this is a great opportunity for a discussion. No two people have the same experiences and so I thought it would be interesting to get some different points of view on ‘cross training’.
There are a few ideas within this guest post that I have issue with, for example, I’m not sure the writer has a solid grasp of what dressage is. I (Snugly aka Dressage Empress) freely admit that today’s dressage world can be a little iffy. However, if we focus on the principles of the discipline, which I think is probably what the chiropractor meant, then dressage can be a useful cross training tool. Furthermore, dressage and conformation articles aren’t based on aesthetics, but function; how the conformation and musculature of the horse help or hinder it in any given discipline.
Personally, I think dressage is beneficial for all horses – sorry, I should say all English discipline based horses as that’s where my experience lies. That’s not to say I believe dressage is the be all, end all of the horse world; but rather that I believe in the principles upon which the discipline is built.
I’m sure most of you have seen or heard of the training pyramid. For those who haven’t, it’s essentially the building blocks of under saddle training. From my understanding, it’s widely used in Europe and not limited to dressage.
Now, does a well mannered trail horse who listens to his rider need to focus on this? No. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it! But what if you needed to open a gait? A few steps of leg yield might not be the worst idea…
Ok, that’s all I’m going to say. I want to leave this open for discussion!
I’ve heard of being overhorsed…
…but not of a horse being over-geared.
We posted the following picture on Snarky Rider on Saturday after having a few people share it with us on facebook. It has sparked quite the discussion over there and I thought it might be a good discussion here as well. Take a look and comment away!
