Another possibly dumb newby question (set of questions-long sorry)

[Painted_Wings]

I know very few people that have financed their horse. It really does not make any business sense at all.

One person I know who was starting a barn as a dressage trainer got a second mortgage on their house to buy a nice dressage horse. Of course the horse developed a bone infection and died.

I’m in the group that has not paid more than $2k for a horse. My best hunt horse was $1600 at an auction. Sold her for $7500 and the new owner was delighted. She just came back last week and bought another from me. Didn’t even throw a leg over him. Wrote me a check loaded him in the trailer and drove the 6 hrs back to Tenn. I was like “Don’t you want to try him?”. She was “no, I trust you”. Ok, that’s really a trusting person. That’s the way foxhunters are though. She knows how I ride and what I can ride and that if I say the horse has hunted, it will have actually hunted.

I’m surprised at your comment about QHs and enthusiasm. I ride paints which are basically spotted QHs. I find that they are ready for anything I ask them to do. I’ve got 5 paints. All hunt and event are easy keepers and get along in the pasture with minimal maintenance.

[WilfredLeblanc]

[QUOTE=wateryglen;4553608]
Oh Mr Leblanc! Your last sentence is profound and often true I fear. :sadsmile: The tribe is not always nice! Thats why we need mentors, friends, and fellow tribe members to look out for us and guide us. My best advice? Get a large group of guardian angels to advise or run stuff by before you decide. I encourage leasing too before buying if you can. Get to know the horse first-it’s like a marriage. You’ll be together for a long time so it’s important you like & trust each other!
Carry no breed biases with you as you look. A good horse is a good horse. Kinda like men!!! :winkgrin:[/QUOTE]

I’ve been leasing for 2 1/2 years now–different horses on month-to-month bases–and it’s been the best thing for me, I think. It’s been inconvenient, at times, to lose or have to jettison a lease and have to find another, but riding the widest possible variety of horses has been pretty key to my moving towards having a well-rounded sense of what’s normal and what’s not; what’s immaturity and what’s an intractable flaw; what horses do when they’re in pain vs. what they do when they’re feeling great; how my own mistakes play into horse conduct, etc. Fortunately, I’m at a place where I can line up livery to hunt, and can get my workouts for very little or nothing by hacking horses from the schooling herd at my barn or hacking horses my trainer is shaping up for resale, so there’s no real urgency to buying.

I will say, echoing Paintedwings’ observation, that hunters generally seem a good deal more on the up and up–more honest and interested in the well-being of all parties involved–than, say, the eventing or show jumping crew. But I’m sure there are shady characters lurking about in the hunt orbit as well, alas.

I should add, too, that I didn’t mean to imply there’s anything wrong with profiting from the sale of a horse one has put work into, but like everyone here, probably, I am aware of an awful lot of disgraceful conduct around horse transactions–total mispresentation in advertising, highly imaginative pricing, insincere and unenforceable guarantees, etc. It’s insane, but I guess it’s just something you have to be willing to maneuver around.

[WilfredLeblanc]

[QUOTE=wateryglen;4553608]
Oh Mr Leblanc! Your last sentence is profound and often true I fear. :sadsmile: The tribe is not always nice! Thats why we need mentors, friends, and fellow tribe members to look out for us and guide us. My best advice? Get a large group of guardian angels to advise or run stuff by before you decide. I encourage leasing too before buying if you can. Get to know the horse first-it’s like a marriage. You’ll be together for a long time so it’s important you like & trust each other!
Carry no breed biases with you as you look. A good horse is a good horse. Kinda like men!!! :winkgrin:[/QUOTE]

I’ve been leasing for 2 1/2 years now–different horses on month-to-month bases–and it’s been the best thing for me, I think. It’s been inconvenient, at times, to lose or have to jettison a lease and have to find another, but riding the widest possible variety of horses has been pretty key to my moving towards having a well-rounded sense of what’s normal and what’s not; what’s immaturity and what’s an intractable flaw; what horses do when they’re in pain vs. what they do when they’re feeling great; how my own mistakes play into horse conduct, etc. (I should add that following posts on this BB has been an extremely helpful complement to empiricism!) Fortunately, I’m at a place where I can line up livery to hunt, and can get my workouts for very little or nothing by hacking horses from the schooling herd at my barn or hacking horses my trainer is shaping up for resale, so there’s no real urgency to buying.

I will say, echoing Paintedwings’ observation, that hunters generally seem a good deal more on the up and up–more honest and interested in the well-being of all parties involved–than, say, the eventing or show jumping crew. But I’m sure there are shady characters lurking about in the hunt orbit as well, alas.

I should add, too, that I didn’t mean to imply there’s anything wrong with profiting from the sale of a horse one has put work into, but like everyone here, probably, I am aware of an awful lot of disgraceful conduct around horse transactions–total mispresentation in advertising, highly imaginative pricing, insincere and unenforceable guarantees, etc. It’s insane, but I guess it’s just something you have to be willing to maneuver around.