Or, as in my case, 1st year is fine…but then the 2nd year comes and the horse gets comfortable, he decides to let his hair down, he figures he’s earned a good reputation and can let loose…he then collects many many vet bills over the first half of his 2nd year. :rolleyes: The honeymoon phase has clearly ended and now we’re well into a somewhat bitter (me) marriage :lol:
Maybe we can recover with counseling!
Ahhh, I love this thought…kind of like an adopted kid…will you still love me if?
Then there’s the other side, last show we were at had a steward, she wanted to check his bit, he wasn’t on board with that. With a little patience we got the job done, and she offered him a cookie as a reward…”not eating that”
My friend took it and offered “NOT eating that”
I took it and offered “Yummy cookie, and safe, thanks mum”
My horse is laughing so hard at this she is farting. OMG, she is farting BREAK OUT THE ULCER MEDS! She cost me nearly nothing. She sees her vet more often than I see the vet at work and there are between 75 and 100 animals at work. She has a dermatologist. Etc. I can’t go on because I will cry. lol
And she is the best horse in the world <3
They are smart. First year they are super careful because they don’t want to be re-sold, retired, or put down. After we have proved ourselves worthy it’s game on with the needing Jimmy Choos every 6 weeks, getting vet worthy lacerations on absolutely nothing, not feeling 100% I think I need to see my favourite doctor today, that wasn’t my favourite doctor last time so I feel a little worse this week send the good one, etc.
Ain’t that the truth. My horse has a huge crush on my vet…or maybe his assistant even, and loves to see them. Said horse also knows he won’t pass a PPE as long as he keeps up the shenanigans, so I’m stuck with him. 
@KBC you are cracking me up! I FEEL YOU!!
My horse in high school was previously my dad’s heading & healing horse. Cost $2500 in the early 90’s from a newspaper ad. I evented him through training level and showed dressage through 2nd. We won a TON (not to brag, we just did!). Never lame a day in his life. One small bout of ulcers and never any other issues. We still own him (he’s 32!) and my mom still lightly trail rides him.
Bought my first horse as an adult a few years ago. a 5 yr old Hanoverian gelding, 18 hands. We show in the hunters. He ripped his eyelid (in his perfectly safe stall) requiring sutures, got bit in the leg by something poisonous (spider or snake), which was a muli month ordeal and is still not quite the same, broke his splint bone in the pasture and required surgery, had another non-healing wound on his other leg, escaped form his stall and fell on asphalt, earning him sutures on his elbow and abrasions on all his legs and stifles.
Ya… I would agree that the fancier they are the more accident prone! :lol::winkgrin:
whereas mine just tries to crush mine…this written after a recent show:
Mr Chuck, Chuckles, Chuckie.
I needed to help some one with their horse yesterday, so handed Chuck off to the nearest person, went and did my good deed, came back to collect my good steed, and had to apologize!
I had handed him off to a show mum, totally forgetting her other role in life,she is the VET, run Jaws music! The vet who sticks me, pokes me, BAD person…so Chuck works out how much revenge he can get off with, settled on the sneaky, put hoof on half of foot, then slide it off, cue innocent look, “oh I’m sorry, was that your foot I was squashing?”
Yes I believe it was deliberate!
Sorry Dr Jess, we really do appreciate you!!
I have three, daughters 9k pony, my 15k horse and my 30k Horse (talking euro here).
9k pony has coliced once since owning him and it was a quickly over thing.
15k horse has had back injections, hoof wounds in the field resulting in total of 5 months (back and hoof) off of jumping and then the week of a show decided to run off with my saddle on fall over…cue huge legs the day after and days off of work. Yup, she was a bargain 😂😂
so far the most expensive one has had a cough. I will knock on wood very hard after this as she has her first international show this month…
My first horse was $100. She was solid,. hardly ever had to see the vet, easy keeper, great brain, fun to ride.
Second was an OTTB, a bit more, $800 plus $500 to get him shipped. He was amazing to ride, but I could.not.get.weight.on.him. I figured out the magic formula finally and it was something as a college kid I couldn’t afford, so I found him a home with a girl who had the money and wanted a good eventer (he could jump the moon).
Third horse was a dinky little project pony, paid $300 for him as an unbroken almost-3 year old. Literally the easiest horse I have ever had, lived on air, talented, born broke, could put kids on him and not worry a lick after one month of being under saddle. Too small for me though. He lives at a horse camp now and was leased out to a girl during the school year, competed Novice at the AECs (he’s the pony with the Auburn tiger mascot on his back that was on EN).
Fourth horse was another OTTB, about $1500 I think, most I had spent on a horse at that point. Cribber, skinny, skin issues, arthritis. Got him restarted and went to a pleasure home.
Current horse the most I have paid, $2500. I love him to pieces, he has a fantastic brain. Not the best conformation. But within the first year and a half of owning him I have paid almost double his purchase price in random vet bills. I think he is worth it though!
The super cheap ones were definitely the easiest ones I had as far as no injuries, easy care, low maintenance, best brains.
Our son’s gelding was a fancy, talented cutter in his day and he is a classy-looking dude. We acquired him from friends at a good price, though it was a small fortune for us. When we brought him home, my husband looked at him in awe and said 'This is the nicest thing we’ll ever own." And he was right.
But the multiple serious colics, the ulcers, the abscesses, the feet that must be shod all the way round, and years of a mystery lameness that has put him into retirement - all this has emptied buckets of money into our vet’s college account for his kids. He’s taught me a lot, I’ll give him that, and over the years we’ve uncovered the solutions to the colics, the ulcers, the abscesses and, for the most part, the mystery lameness. But still. He’s retired except for an occasional walk around the pasture. So much for the low-level cow work I’d dreamed of doing with him when our son left for college. He’s the grumpy prince of our place and that’s okay.
My mare, however, was a pity buy, a true rescue situation. The sheriff had seized a group of horses from a hoarder who’d starved them; two of them died and the rest were shockingly poor. The surviving horses were vetted and brought back to relative health by the sheriff’s office. I went to the sheriff’s auction when they were sold. No one bid on what I thought was the nicest mare, so I raised my hand and said $50. My husband, bless his heart, did not bat an eye when I called to tell him I needed the trailer.
I brought her home 14 years ago; she’s now in the neighborhood of 30 years old. She looks half that. In her time with us, she’s colicked very mildly twice (got into a new round bale both times and pigged out), stepped on a nail and lacerated an eyelid on a fence. And that’s it!
Meanwhile I think I have the lowest maintenance “expensive” horse ever.
I bought her for a steal (because she’s aged and quirky) but not too long ago she was a 6-figure horse. She spent a majority of her life in show barns that treated her like a queen. Now she lives on the plains of Colorado; outside 24/7 in a herd of 15 other mares. She never sees the inside of a stall. She only gets vaccines, 1x yearly hock injections (a small price to pay for her soundness), and plain front shoes.
She’s happy as can be. She LOVES her semi-feral, semi-show horse life and I imagine even though she’s months away from 20 she’ll still be sound and jumping for many more years.
I arrived at the barn yesterday lunch time, to be greeted with
”Are you riding today? Your horse is going crazy…he doesn’t like this weather”
I rode, he was good, then I took the suggestion and turned him back out in a light blanket. Everyone else is out, naked, it’s June, fly season has not taken off yet, we have been having a heatwave…one chilly day and His Wussyness wants his blankie…
I have eight horses.
The plain, kind of homely one will outlast the cockroaches during the apocalypse.
The nicest one spends at least a week at the vet hospital once a year.
:lol:
If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got a $0 horse who is enough of a frequent flyer at the nearest vet school that the students tend to know her long and sordid veterinary history long before they meet her. Who has adverse side-effects/reactions from just about everything, including and especially things meant to make her healthier. Who can be thrown out in a field … if you want her to drop 100 lbs in the blink of an eye and become an anxious, ulcer-ridden mess. Who can be trusted under any circumstances … to spook at ridiculous things. My no-nonsense rancher grandpa would say she’s worth every penny I paid for her (also tongue firmly in cheek). But the truth is I’d do it all over again (tens of thousands of dollars in vet bills included) and I’m not positive that the more expensive horses that are likely to come into my life after will be able to measure up.
Some horses are just worth the fuss.
When I was horse hunting about four years ago I went to see a plain paint steady Eddy who was about 15.2 and as sweet as could be, never been hunted but seemed like a trouper. He was $2500. The girl who owned him was concerned that I was driving an hour and wanted me to be sure I knew his price. He was awesome. The next horse I looked at was half Irish sport horse and $25000. Had one year hunting as a GUEST horse, so didn’t have a steady ride to establish her career. Was also half Arab. The rep for the seller was very into trying to give me a riding lesson. Um, I’m walking on a loose rein for a reason. Passed. She was just not as good of a horse as the first. I ended up buying a horse from my friend but was sure to let the first person know how her horse was superior. Just as pretty. So in all, pricing horses is so very subjective and not quite an indicator of thier quality.
This is easily understood when you understand that equine prices are a gravitational phenomenon.
Cheap horses are cheap because they have a very low gravitational field, so they can’t pull much money out of your wallet, either at the time of purchase or later. That weak gravitational field also means they’re far less adept at pulling dangerous objects and hostile animals into their immediate vicinity.
The more expensive the horse, the stronger its gravitational field (as demonstrated by its initial purchase price). That strong gravitational field will continue to pull the money out of your wallet forever, and will attract every nail, loose bit of barbed wire, sharp hook, etc, into the horse’s stall no matter how hard you attempt to keep these things away. It pulls loose clods of earth out of the pasture, creating holes for the horse to fracture its leg in, and it also attracts every cranky gelding and bitchy mare in its field of influence to come and be the horse’s pasture mates. The stronger the gravitational field, the farther this effect extends (as equine gravity follows the inverse square law). FEI-level horses have fields so strong they can pull a nail from hundreds of miles away into their stall so they can step on it the night before the opening of the Olympic equestrian event the horse is scheduled to compete in.
It’s science, people! 
:lol:
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