Noooo! You will live to regret this, and may find you spend the price of a made hunter many times over before/if the horse ever develops into what you want. It is definitely NOT this simple as what you’re describing here.
But I understand your situation. I was in a similar position (first horse was an older packer who passed away from melanoma in just a year; I wanted a younger horse and found myself gravitating to the “good for a junior or amateur in a program” ads).
It’s hard because no one out there is struggling to find owners for the type of horse you really need. People aren’t rushing to sell their sound, sane horses who are confirmed in their training—they sell young projects, or ones with issues that show up in regular work, or mysterious pasts they can gloss over with a veneer of training that you can only hope to maintain with a trainer at home. The question you have to ask yourself is, if the difference between a “made” horse and one of these restarted projects could really be made up in a 90-days’ professional program, why wouldn’t the seller keep them long enough to do that themselves? It’s because there is more volume and more value for them in selling the unknown/unproven. All those ads that say “absolutely no buck, no spin, no rear” are basically just admitting they haven’t put enough rides on the horse in enough environments to know any better—and they don’t want to. They want to be ignorant, they want you to be ignorant, and hopefully you get lucky with the horse you bring home and have the right help (even if it takes a lot longer than 90 days), but it is entirely possible that you do not.
But, at the same time, buying a horse is always a crapshoot. You could get the perfect, made hunter and have it quickly deteriorate under your ownership—either a physical issue, or not a match for you, or not thriving in the training environment you can afford to provide. I feel like the only people I’ve seen not struggle in some capacity are leasers. All horse owners are confronted with setbacks behaviorally or physically at some point and to some extent, and any riding goals have to take a backseat to training/rehab. So I’m sure everyone is telling you this is a terrible plan, but somewhat fatalistically, I say go for it, but buckle up and be prepared for a bumpy ride. As long as you’re mentally prepared for setbacks and a circuitous route to progress, you can find you enjoy the journey of horse ownership even when your riding victories aren’t what you thought they would be.
