Crazy horse buyers and sellers

[findeight]

Decades ago , like 1970, no cell phones, GPS or internet. Newspaper ad reads “4 year old double registered QH/Palomino mare. 16 hands, pro trained, has been shown and won ribbons”. Price was a little low but not suspiciously so as they lived in the absolute middle of nowhere. Called, set up an appointment and got directions to Sunny Acres Farms,

Friend and I set off to see the young mare. Almost 4 hours later after getting lost twice on back country two lanes with no directional signs or street names at junctions, we arrive at a faded sign for Sunny Acres Farm and an arrow pointing down a gravel road, After a mile or so off the paved road, we arrive at Sunny Acres Farm. It’s a trailer park.

By then we got half the day sunk into this expedition with a 4 hour drive home so asked around and finally found the right trailer. It was shabby but clean and the older couple asked us in.we sat at the kitchen table and, kid you not, this scrawny little washed out yellowish pony WALKED INTO THE KITCHEN. Really.

We finally got our breath back and asked to see the mare in the ad and…guess what? That was it. They proudly showed their play day blue ribbons and said their son, a professional handy man, had trained her, measured her as 16h and had registered her with something like the North County Stock and QH club.

I stammered I didn’t think she’d work for for what I wanted and they dropped the price. Still said no thanks and they tried to get me to take the even scrawnier full sibling for free as a bonus.

And here I was worried I’d fall in love with it and impulse buy after such a long drive…

[rothmpp]

I’ve got a couple.

I was looking for a short term project horse. Found one that I thought would fit the bill, made an appointment. Turns out seller had two of us there at the same time, I’m assuming to incite a bidding war. Turns out I knew the other potential buyer and we got a good laugh about it. I passed, and my friend actually ended up getting a pretty good discount on her.

I also ended up with a scam seller situation. I never did figure out what they were trying to accomplish. Found a listing that fell under “too good to be true”. Horse was supposed to be pretty close to me, so I figured there would be no harm in playing it out to see what happened. Contacted the seller and no, it wouldn’t work for me to come see the horse, but they would let me take him on a 30 day trial. So weird. I had already done a further search and found the legit ad for the horse. I never pursued it further, so I don’t know what would have happened going forward. There was no discussion of money, so maybe it would have been them asking for a deposit before delivery and then the horse never showing up. Or a totally different horse delivered. Who knows what the end game was on that one.

[beau159]

About 10 years ago, we sold our 19-year-old Nokota/Welsh mare. She was the only horse that had been born on our place so she had a special place in our hearts. But she had already spent the prior 5 years just getting fat in the pasture, when she instead could be teaching a kid to ride.

So we placed her for sale for $100 (more or less to have some sort of exchange of cash). We just wanted a good home for her where she could be enjoyed. I’ve never had so many phone calls and offers before. I had at least 20 people call in a couple hours, just begging.

But the “crazy” part is when one guy (who I talked to that day) called us at literally 5:00 AM the next day to see if we had decided to sell the horse to him.

Seriously? You just put yourself on the “no” list by calling that early and waking us all up.

How on earth he thought that was a good idea is beyond me… (no, we didn’t sell her to him)

[atr]

FindEight, it really was an adventure buying horses back then, wasn’t it! You never knew quite where and what you were getting into–especially if you were like me and my buddy, who were in the “project horse” market…

[x]

The craziest buying one I had was when I went to see a 14H leopard appaloosa and when I got there they led out a grey 13.2H pony–grey as in pure white–not a speck, not a fleabite, or anything on it, and the owner says to me, “and you can see all the leopard spots on her”!!

[16_Hands]

Thought of another.
Lots of years ago, had a very nice, well bred appy mare and was thinking of selling. I responded to an ad for a quarter horse gelding for sale and asked the woman if she’d be interested in a trade; she was. I got my horse all gussied up and loaded in the trailer and off we went to see this other horse. We arrive at a trailer with a mud pen in which resided about 3 other horses. I knocked on the door and out comes this woman.

I told her who I was and asked which horse was it. She drags this solid white grade puke out of the mud and I was already thinking there’s no way in hell I’m leaving my mare here. I asked to ride it and she leads it over to the indoor arena. I unloaded my horse just to give her a break and tacked up the puke. He had no concept of steering let alone brakes and after about 5 minutes told her I wasn’t interested.

At that point she said she had a nice 4 year old in the barn that I might like. I already had my mare in my hand so we walked into the barn to see this other horse. We arrive at the stall and the first thing out of her mouth is:

“You’ve got such a snotty nose, I hope you’re not getting strangles again”

I kid you not.

I ran out of there and told my mare not to touch anything on the way out. Loaded up and left. Kept a close watch on my horse for the next few weeks and fortunately, she was fine.

P.S. A week later she calls and asks if I was interested in the 4 year old. I told her there is no way in God’s green earth that I would consider buying a horse from her. Unbelievable.

[hairystockings]

I went to look at a horse I found online, I was shopping with $30k looking for something to do 2-3 rings with at 3’. eq/hunter, eq/jumper, whatever. Just something kind and reliable, amateur friendly that I could ride at area local to A shows. Trainer had this cute little TB with a kid looking to move on to a 3’6 jumper. Advertised him as a 3 ring horse, he’d gotten some ribbons at decent local and B rated shows. I had other horses to try in the area and thought sure why not I’ll sit on him. He was under budget too so you never know maybe get lucky. I get there and the horse is cute, well built. Kid hops on him and rides around, it’s immediately apparent that flat work is not a thing they do. Kid jumps around, horse jumps anything you point him at, that’s nice. I’m like well I’ll just get on. This horse had zero flat work, none whatsoever, couldn’t even bend him. They advertised him as having a lead change which proved to work only if you GALLOPED him for it, so he’d jumped a fence and land and scoot in anticipation, regardless of what lead he landed on. I hopped over a couple cross rails with him just to see what the jump felt like. He was completely nonadjustable from the total lack of flat work so one time he left super long and I just went with it. The next time he chipped bc he wouldn’t let me break check him to add nicely. The trainer was like “see he’ll jump from anywhere!” and I was thinking “because you have no say!”. He certainly was kind and harmless but he wasn’t worth the $20k they wanted (honestly I would have ball parked him as being worth around $10k maybe? Ask $10 and get 8-9 sort of thing) and not at all equipped to show at the A rated shows like they said he was.

And then I found out the horse the kid wanted to buy was one the trainer had for sale and I put two and two together that the trainer probably wanted $20k for that horse and that’s why this horse was for sale for that much. Cue facepalm.

Similarly many years ago I wanted to buy a large pony jumper prospect off a 14 year old kid who had it for sale. I talked to mom first and she was like well you should really talk to my daughter because it’s her pony and she’s trained and she’s selling it (oh boy). They kept their horses at home and trained at home, kid in the videos really was a decent rider. The pony was super cute and the kid was advertising it as a hunter because she knew hunters were worth more. The pony desperately wanted to be a jumper and was over price by a couple grand, at least, accordingly. So I spoke to the kid and she tells me about the pony and I said so here’s what I see based on everything you’ve given me, and here is how much I’d be willing to spend on your pony. Is that of interest to you or no? And, god love her, the kid goes “well I really need the extra money so I can show my other horse in the equitation which is what I really want to do”.

That’s…not how that works. People don’t pay extra money on top of a horses real value so you can have the extra spending cash (don’t we all wish buyers were that dumb). So I, politely as I could, explained to the kid that her pony wanted to be a jumper, had no show record and had been trained almost exclusively by a teenager and was already 9 years old. I would be surprised if anyone paid what you’re asking. You need to put some miles on it if you want that much money (which costs money but ok). Recommended trying the pony jumpers, see if you can qualify for pony finals, something to get it closer to the price tag she wanted for it.

Kid took all my advice and totally changed the pony’s add to reflect their new plans (to show in jumpers and qualify for PF) and kept the price the same. No idea what it ended up selling for.

[shiloh]

I rode with a trainer for awhile that had quite a few wealthy clients. She totally catered to these people and they had some rather strange ideas of what was suitable. The one woman wanted a 4 or 5 year old WB, that was jumping 5 feet (never mind that this woman could not be persuaded to jump anything over 2 feet because she was terrified), it had to be at least 17.2 and could not be priced over $500. Really - five HUNDRED. oy.

And this same trainer never bought horses that were trained for what they were purchased to do. Former barrel racers were tried to be made into jumpers, eventers that could not be controlled made into hunters and reining horses also turned into jumpers. Her reasoning was that horses that already did jumping, etc would cost too much and these other horses were less costly. Again, oy.

[HappyTalk]

@Dubarry

Shopping for a local level hunter on a limited budget. Facebook ad caught my eye as it was within 30 minutes of my house. “15.2H grey QH gelding, walk trot canters, jumps small jumps, starting to get a lead change”. No picture or video but I was still interested and took a begrudging friend to video, who insisted I would never be competitive at 3’ with a 15.2H QH. We arrive to find the horse on the cross ties and as I stand next to him I realize there is no way he’s 15.2H. Yes, he measures just a shade under 16.3H.

LOL, I had a similar experience with a QH also. He was advertised as 16.0 hands and he was only 30 minutes away, so I decide to go take a look. Now I am 5’4", which is 16 hands, so I use my own height as a guide. Owner brings out this beautiful black horse who has to be at least 17 hands. This horse towers over me. I mention that I think he is larger than advertised and owner gives the answer “well he must have grown” . Horse also had a weird foot. Owner called it a club foot, but it must have been trimmed to appear normal. The frog was shrunken and receded way up into the hoof with no ground contact at all. I always find that a lot of horses for sale have a fatal flaw that the owner will never mention in the pre-visit info exchange.

[Bozilla]

My friend is currently shopping for an Arab for her daughter to show in all around breed shows. Goes to see a solid bay half arab gelding. Seller hands her the horses papers to look at and the description shows a horse with 3 tall whites and a star. When she questioned him, the seller tried to tell her that those markings were to describe the dam of this horse. Um, nice try. Packed up kiddo and left.

[akdraft77]

I was looking for a solid trail horse a few years ago, and lined up an appointment to see a pretty little QH mare that was described to have had extensive “natural horsemanship training” and a been there, done that willing demeanor. She was priced accordingly. I brought my trailer intending to bring her home if she checked out.

I met the owner at the house where the horse was kept, asked a few questions, and let her talk.

She described not having ridden the horse in some time and the more she talked, the more holes I found in her advertisement. She’d only let you on after you lunged her and cranked her head around. She’s still only stand just long enough to almost swing your leg over. She wouldn’t leave the yard without another horse. and…somehow, she only went backwards.

I could leave the yard in reverse, and the only time she’s go forward was back to the barn.

Curious about her teachability, and because I didn’t want to make things worse for the next person to ride her, I rode back and forth past the house for almost two hours before she’d take a forward step away from the house.

We walked forward about a football field length away from the house, I turned her around and walked back.

Her owner was excited. I’d apparently been the first person to get her to walk away like that.

extensively trained my butt.

that little mare didn’t come home with me.

The next horse I looked at fit the bill.

[vxf111]

@HappyTalk

I always find that a lot of horses for sale have a fatal flaw that the owner will never mention in the pre-visit info exchange.

Like going all the way to another country only to discover their hunter horse roars, LOUDLY, and that’s why the videos they sent you had no sound?

[Frosty_M]

My friend came into some cash and went on a horse buying kick. We went to see a pretty bay QH mare. My friend had specified that some one had to ride the mare first. A lanky teen-aged girl got on and showed off the mare perfectly. My friend got on and the mare did fine until she was at the other end of the property. Then she dumped her. My friend had to walk all the way back leading the mare.

I had another friend who knew these people. I described what had happened- how well the mare had done with the girl and how she had deliberately bucked off my friend. My friend laughed and said, “That girl can ride the hair off a snake.”

My friend passed on the mare. She hadn’t done much snake riding and didn’t plan to…

[Stacie]

@Dubarry

Shopping for a local level hunter on a limited budget. Facebook ad caught my eye as it was within 30 minutes of my house. “15.2H grey QH gelding, walk trot canters, jumps small jumps, starting to get a lead change”. No picture or video but I was still interested and took a begrudging friend to video, who insisted I would never be competitive at 3’ with a 15.2H QH. We arrive to find the horse on the cross ties and as I stand next to him I realize there is no way he’s 15.2H. Yes, he measures just a shade under 16.3H.

What happened? Did you buy him?

[demidq]

I went to look at a 3 yo w/b cross filly, advertised as well started. Seller gave me detailed directions to her place. I arrived, seller told me filly was at another barn for training and we’d drive over together. Silly me, assuming the horse was at the address she had given me.
She then gave me a tour of her farm, showed me dam (who couldn’t be caught), other unhandled youngsters, assorted livestock. She cooked lunch, I met the (large) family. After dishes were washed and kitchen tidied we headed out to the training barn. Time elapsed now about 2 hours.
We arrived after another 45+ minute drive, and there was a very unkempt frightened youngster with bandaged legs cowering in the back of stall. Seller told me she had been trailered over loose and had climbed out the back of the trailer, fell onto highway scraping herself up quite badly. They had put off starting to work her until legs were healed, but I was welcome to look at her in the (dark) stall. No, they couldn’t bring her out as she was not easy to halter or lead.
That was the waste of most of a day!
Seller called me a month or so later to tell me filly had now been ridden a few times and to ask if I was still interested.
Ummm- no thanks.

[Malda]

@demidq

I went to look at a 3 yo w/b cross filly, advertised as well started. Seller gave me detailed directions to her place. I arrived, seller told me filly was at another barn for training and we’d drive over together. Silly me, assuming the horse was at the address she had given me.
She then gave me a tour of her farm, showed me dam (who couldn’t be caught), other unhandled youngsters, assorted livestock. She cooked lunch, I met the (large) family. After dishes were washed and kitchen tidied we headed out to the training barn. Time elapsed now about 2 hours.

This happened to me! Arrived at the breeder, huge farm, insisted on showing us around, explained in detail how the whole place was set up, explained the different herd dynamics, who was alpha etc, brought out a binder and showed us all the horses he had bred, comments on his top breeders, etc., and periodically complained about when people came to buy a horse all they wanted to do was try the horses out, not tour the facility. He couldn’t understand that. We were polite only because he was old, but it was over two hours before I got on a horse.

At least you got a meal.

[demidq]

Malda- no, I didn’t get a meal, or even a cup of tea! I sat and watched while the family ate, no offers of refreshment

[Feliz]

I always love these threads!

I turned up to see a mare and the old guy selling her insisted on inviting me in to show me her papers, photos of the sire, have a cup of tea & a chocolate biscuit. He was lovely, we chatted for quite a while before I said I should probably see the horse. This was when I found out she’d been tied to a tree the whole time I’d been there. When I patted her shoulder she promptly kicked me in the knee :eek:

Retelling this it sounds so bad! But she was a lovely mare, I had a good ride and bought her. She turned into a super horse - much sharper than what I’d buy now (a decade older) but taught me an enormous amount and I actually sold her for a profit :lol:

I’ve done a bit of bargain shopping in my time
Very pretty = such a bad parrot mouth I could see it as we walked across the paddock
A bit too forward = I had an inkling when I asked for trot that if I asked for canter we may never have returned. I managed to stop by spiralling the horse in. Then found out the “not so confident rider” was exercising racehorses for cash . . .
Good mover = worst trot I have ever ridden
Good mover = both front legs paddled so badly the horse could take out your knee if it trotted to close to you (honestly, I’ve never seen such an extreme)
No scars = major sarcoids right where the bridle sits. Tried to feed me some bs line about what they were and that they were harmless (same sellers as the paddler)

Selling is equally fun and really I hope I never have to do it again

One lady came to watch me compete an eventing mare - she wanted something she could get out and compete immediately at the level we were currently doing - 0.95m. The mare was quite a big unit and not especially fast, so we just bowled along and put in a lovely, flawless round. First question as I was walking the mare off - “That looked really fast. Will she go any slower?” Let me repeat - this mare was not fast. We were not going fast. A friend had videoed me and we were in a slow gallop all the way around. Needless to say I didn’t sell to her . . .

[dacasodivine]

@demidq

Malda- no, I didn’t get a meal, or even a cup of tea! I sat and watched while the family ate, no offers of refreshment

You’re kidding! I think we all thought they fed you! That’s awful!

[dacasodivine]

Not as exciting as some. While horse shopping many years ago, I was looking for a horse gentle enough for my 8 year old son to putter around on but large enough to carry an adult. I answered one add for a 12 year old horse that grandkids had grown bored of. I talk to the seller and explain what I want. I am assured this horse is perfect for us.

I arrive and seller pulls out a skinny (3 1/2 to 4 on H scale) that clearly hasn’t seen 12 in a few years. I decide to give him a short ride. He’s a lovely horse, good mover, very responsive, but has more go than an 8 year old beginner would be able to handle. That’s when the seller tells me they just led the grandkids on the horse. Okay. I then mention the horse looks older than 12. Seller admitted that when they bought the horse they were told he was 12 but they suspected he was older.

I asked how long they had him. “A couple years.” ??? I guess horses don’t age.

Selling story. I had a 3 year old large pony I was selling, He had never been ridden and that was posted in the ad. I got the usual, “will he be good for kids” questions. I finally got someone that seemed legit. She indicated she understood he had never been ridden and would need to be sent to a trainer.

Mom and several kids came out to meet him and loved how personable he was and wanted him but wanted their trainer to come meet him first. No problem!

Trainer comes out. They had hired trainer from an ad on Craigslist and had never actually met this person. Told trainer pony was well started but needed to be finished before kid got lessons. They were thinking 2 weeks would do it. LOL I showed trainer my ad that clearly stated he had never been ridden. Trainer and I agreed pony would not be a good fit for them.

I still have that pony. He’s about the best trail horse you could ever want and is full of personality. And turned out he’s gaited. I didn’t know because he only gaits when ridden. Selling him would have been a huge mistake.