My first horse was actually in-barn when I was looking to purchase… however, he was greener than I was really looking for, and had no real exposure/experience to anything. I had looked at a bunch of horses, trailed some, but nothing was working out.
So there’s this nearly 17h thoroughbred gelding (coming 7 per his papers) who had some basic training at the track but never tattooed/started, was pitched in a field for years and never had anything done with him, gelded late, and had about 90 days under saddle when I sat on him. The second trial ride I did on him - february in Chicago, we had a hailstorm…on a tin roof, the world was ending. A horse at the other end of the arena was being lunged and got free (trailing lead line and all). Ran laps around the arena and here I am, a teenager with giant goggly eyes and I couldn’t hear any instruction from my trainer so I just halted the horse and hoped he’d make good life choices. He parked himself, didn’t spook (at trailing lunge line, spooking horse, or roof-apocalypse sound) and really just seemed completely unaffected by the entire debacle.
He was for sale because his owner was moving and needed to sell one of her horses to fund the transport of another…so based on his brain, we ended up getting him. He was a lot of horse, and not an ideal choice for a first horse (and while I was a competent rider, he probably should have gone to a professional or a professional-caliber amateur), but we did find our way, after years of negotiation. My trainer was the one who arranged the trial rides, so arguably it’s a case of trainer connection/right time right place, for that one.
My current one was a bit more circuitous. After I lost my first (above mentioned) horse, I was considering quitting horses altogether. A friend knew of a breeder local to him who had a foal due the following spring that, on paper, had a pedigree I would likely be interested in. He sent their website my way, I looked at it, looked at her facebook, sent a casual inquiry (and asked that they let me know when the foal was born, I was curious enough to consider following up), and started following the business facebook page. Come spring, foal is born, my email eats the notification the breeder sent, but I’m on facebook creeping away and the baby is so stinking cute (aren’t they all?) that I end up messaging the breeder again asking if she had been sold in utero/or if she was still available, and I’d like to come out and visit if we could arrange it.
Long story short, I meet a five week old filly who is completely composed, absolutely smitten with people, and spent the better part of 90 minutes just parked at my hip so I could keep scratching her (indifferent to mom wandering off, shenanigans of other mares, foals, etc). She actually followed me all the way back to the gate (leaving mom to do so) and it is the best argument I will ever have to prove “I DO TOO HAVE SELF CONTROL!” that I did not buy her then and there. (Instead I sat on the idea, and overthought, because that is my general MO, and then someone kept posting/inquiring about the filly every time the breeder posted an update, and I realized that based on how sensitive I was at the idea of anyone else buying her, that clearly meant I had to buy her.)
So I did.
