Of course you’re a good home … for the right horse. That just means the seller is prioritizing a good match, as opposed to a first-come-first-serve mentality. You can’t tell from an ad alone if you’d be a good home (fortunately it’s easier to tell if you wouldn’t). Also, descriptors like “needs a confident/experienced rider,” etc., and even the 1-10 “hotness” scale, mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I put maybe 10-20% weight in the ad description and 80-90% weight in the video. Sometimes “needs an experienced rider/program” just means that the horse is good minded but green. Other times it means the horse has quirks and vices that may or may not be in your wheelhouse to fix or live with. But you might be just as likely to run into sales horses advertised as dead broke, anyone-can-ride school masters, who are nothing of the sort. You can’t always tell what type of ride a horse will be from a well-edited video, but IME it is almost always more revealing than the seller’s description
I believe I ride this particular horse several times a week.
Use the sellers description of the horse as only the most basic of structures.
Make your own specific list of questions to ask. Write it down and ask every single one.
I have several different lists depending on the type of client looking, but very specific questions get very specific answers. Meanimg, don’t ask wispy-wash open ended questions about general behavior. Ask specifically “has this horse to your knowledge ever bucked, bolted, or reared? If so, what were the circumstances? «
Be specific:
Spooking (what causes it, and what’s the spook like)
What type of rider does this horse like?
What have you seen that bothers this horse?
There are so many more things to check out, but again, be specific.
Also, when you ask a specific question, you’re much much less likely to get a lie by omission. Lots of sellers do lots of lying by simply never mentioning the problem. They are less likely to be shady about a point blank answer. It’s also helpful to do a lot of this via email because they will know that there is a paper trail of how they represent the horse.
EXCELLENT advice. I have my list of what I want – now to translate it into specific questions per your example. And I’ll steal any of your questions that I can. Thank you!
The horse search can be exhausting, disheartening, and confusing. I’m not ordinarily a very organized person, but when I was last looking for a horse I kept a spreadsheet with details like name, color, height, sex, breed, location, level of training, owner/agent, and any notes I felt were important, It really helped.
Very important: don’t buy any horse you don’t absolutely want. No second thoughts, no doubts. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve done this twice (!) and both times it was a disaster.
Agreed. It can also mean the opposite of forgiving. Some horses do not handle mistakes (bad distance, conflicting aids, etc) well and are more suited towards a pro.
My favorite explanation of the temperament scale comes from Denny Emerson.
It’s on YT here in a three minute video. He gets to the nitty-gritty about halfway in, when he says a 1-4 horse will reliably absorb rider error. Above that, the rider either needs to make fewer mistakes or know how to quickly mitigate the results.
My favorite lines, “The only difference between a 1 and a dead horse is the 1 eats,” and something great about how Bruce Davidson can make an 8 look like a 5 or 6.
Though I haven’t read every reply here, I am a fan of the trial period. You have to have smart paperwork re: vet coverage, etc. Good will goes a long way.
Also, horse traders are too often excellent liars, so good they don’t even know they’re lying.
One comment, as a person who sells a lot of horses - the expectation that you will compete at 3rd someday on a horse that you ride 2-4 days a week is probably not a reasonable expectation. There is a degree of strength and fitness required to compete with collection, etc and you have to keep the horse working and developing to maintain it.
If you just mean the horse needs to be the same whether he’s ridden 2 days or 6, that’s a different expectation, so make sure you’re actually communicating your wants effectively.
I had one who was the best horse ever - so safe you could fell a tree with a chainsaw 10’ away and he wouldn’t flick an ear. However, if he thought you couldn’t or wouldn’t ride him right he turned into the most obnoxious pigheaded lazy lesson horse you could imagine. He needed someone who would ride him and keep teaching him new things, not an older adult lady to putz around on him. I sold him to just such a rider because he was safe and they now have him in full training because he did exactly that. So despite being “amateur friendly” in the sense that he was 1000% safe, he was not amateur friendly in the kind of ride he needed. That horse needed a program and consistent riding not due to misbehavior but to keep him performing.
In contrast I have one now who will try his little heart out to do whatever someone up there asks him to do - doesn’t matter who it is - also not spooky or insecure. If anything he can be a little cocky. I would describe him as amateur friendly for a competent amateur because I could see him becoming frustrated even though he tolerates it well.
And as a last point, I don’t care who you are or how much money you’re spending - I will never, ever send a horse on a trial. You can ride him here as much as you want, but you break it, you bought it, and if you are not able to tell if you absolutely like or do not like a horse within about 15 minutes of riding, I probably don’t want to sell you a horse.
I would be careful doing this, in my experience of several years looking for a nice horse that fits the above bill, if I explain what I am looking for I almost always get a positive, sure Dobbin would be great at that.
I now ask their opinion what the horse would do well at, has experience at, what is the temperament like before telling them anything I want the horse for. jmo
As much as I would like to trial a horse before buying, as a seller I am not in favour of sending out on a trial. Too much can go wrong in a very short time, a horse might come back better than he left but chances are if he’s coming back he’s not better.
I have one in the barn now (the aforementioned super tolerant horse) who came to me because someone took him on trial and he came back completely fried. They clearly did something serious to the horse. It’s taken a year and he has not put one foot wrong while here but we had to teach him how to be fly sprayed and have boots put on without nearly killing himself.
Now he is 100% fine and the light of the barn but if I was ever willing to send a horse on trial before I never will now. The previous owners lost probably $60k in value the week he was on trial, he came back completely unusable for the purpose he was bred and trained for.
This is a great point to keep in mind when watching videos of sales horses: who is riding? Is it someone like you, or a pro? If it’s a pro then you can assume the horse won’t go as well for you
Well I think that would be true of literally any horse, ever - the reason we have professionals is precisely because they can give that ride that is just that much more skilled.
That doesn’t really mean anything though - the horse could go 5% worse for you or refuse to take one step with you on his back, and the video won’t tell you that.
I could ride one of mine in a video (and often do) but you don’t really know what kind of “amateur” I am; I get this request all the time but sometimes what they mean is “put a monkey up there” whereas I’m an amateur who has been riding for 30 years and have my bronze and silver on horses I brought along with competent help.
I’d already figured out that it’s better to ask the sorts of questions you’re suggesting rather than saying “I want X”.
This is beyond sad. Good god.
Ugh! That’s a terrible story. I’m sorry.
My experience with horse-trading on trials was with sale barns, primarily for school horses. We knew in about a minute whether they would fit our program, so the trial was a formality that enabled us to take him or her back and try another.
Is the moral of the story that trials generally serve the buyer more than the seller?
One comment, as a person who sells a lot of horses - the expectation that you will compete at 3rd someday on a horse that you ride 2-4 days a week is probably not a reasonable expectation. There is a degree of strength and fitness required to compete with collection, etc and you have to keep the horse working and developing to maintain it.
I get that…but it’s possible that if we start going well (and I’m able to step back from my work a bit), I could explore a higher level. There’s also the thought that a horse for whom Third is feasible would find the work at First and Second easy and show well at those levels. (Or at least that was my reasoning. I could be totally off-base on that.)
Don’t worry. You can get to 3rd if you are working with a good trainer and personally riding 3-4x a week, and if the horse still needs more, you can get a trainer/pro ride 1-2x a week.
I’ve had horses that are so naturally built and muscled, and then I’ve had some that lose top line literally in a week. These are also good questions to ask sellers, and things to consider if you’re looking at purpose bred vs “off breeds”. For example, OTTBs get cardio fit in an instant, but I’ve had to work really hard to keep them muscled for collected work. And on the other end, I have an almost baroque-built old style KWPN who will just sit and pirouette in the pasture!
I bought a new horse last year. I’m an older (almost 68) re-rider, and while I’m educated, I’m neither talented nor confident. I’d been through the ringer with a wonderful, generous, accident- and illness-prone big mare who knew more than I ever would. My wants were modest. I was looking for:
a gelding, 8-12, no more than 16’, about a 4. I didn’t care about breed, color, or training. I figured I could get/supply that.
And totally lucked out with a gorgeous Azteca, 15’3", bay paint, 10yo. He’s calm, happy to work, easy to handle. Mr. Solid Citizen. He’s thoughtful and not.afraid.of.anything. While his dressage resume was quite short, he’d been camping, up in the mountains, on cows. He was listed as a 4, and I’d guess that’s accurate. He was the only horse I went to see.
We’re having a ball. My point is that at our ages, a good mind is more valuable than flash. Sometimes you get flash as a bonus.
I want to add, because it’s not clear in your OP, how long was the gap since you’ve ridden hard? My younger self could ride pretty much anything. But after a gap of a few decades, I was shocked to learn how much I’d lost. The balance, feel, big confidence … gone. It only takes a bounce or two to turn into tentative riders. So while you’re asking hard questions of sellers, ask those questions of yourself. Don’t be afraid to dial it back a bit, and get a horse that will take care of you now, and ride up with you later.
What a wonderful story!! thank you for sharing that! Your horse sounds like my dream boy - truly. I was just looking at an ad for a Friesian-QH cross who has done loads of ranch work (here in Montana, no less)…I dislike his neck (a bit upside down) but he’s also being ridden totally western. Same as your guy: has done everything; the video showed the rider throwing reins over saddle horn and the horse loading himself in a trailer from 10 feet away.
It’s been 20+ years since riding steadily, though I did have the 6 months with the butthead ISH a few years ago, so there’s that. I totally agree about having lost my feel…but am also happy that it’s coming back with just 2x/week right now on the borrowed horse.
All that is meant to say – thank you for the advice, and for sharing your happy story.
