My 20 yr. old wonderful ,perfect ,MFT mare is having stifle problems that keep me from riding her on long rides now. She’ll be with me forever but I have faced reality and need to find a replacement . I have been looking for six months and haven’t found anything . The ones that look good turn out to be lame, or rough or… well we all know finding a good horse can be as tough as finding a good date. But hey I really need a horse!
Why is it so hard to find a sane, sound , smooth gaited horse. In the past I have always bought green horses but I am past that point in my life. I can’t take those risks anymore,. I need a trained horse that can be trusted.
Is it NC or a problem everywhere? I don’t think I’m to picky as color doesn’t matter, breed doesn’t matter as long as he is well gaited. A broken ankle and a bad back means I have to ride a smooth horse, I can’t post anymore.
What am I doing wrong. I need ideas
Thanks
google Kay Stanley+ singlefooters in Virginia. Tell her Kat from Alabama sent you 
I’ve got the exact same issues going on here on the other side of the country. I’m willing to spend a decent amount of money, but apparently it is not enough to avoid having to look at skittish, club footed, horses with bad conformation and bad manners to boot that sounded so perfect in the advertisement. I’ve upped the amount I’m willing to spend, but I see the horses other people have spent big sums of cash on around here and wonder if there is some kind of terrible shortage of available horses going on. With hay now going for $17 a bale here in SoCal, I thought people might be looking to lessen their hay bill, but apparently not. I’ll just keep looking.
I have two! PM me if you want to hear more about them. Good luck in your search.
Where in NC are you? You might consider a mosey south … there are hordes of nice, gaited trail horses in SC: TWHs, Rockies, Pasos, etc.
WTB gaited horse
Horsing Around
Yes you describe the problem very clearly although i bet its the same for most breeds. Its not that hard to buy a decent green broke or long yearling but a healthy ,sane ,trained horse seems to be impossible to find.
17 dollar a bale hay is unreal, here i pay $5 to have it delivered and stacked in the barn. I don’t think I could keep horses at $17 a bale.
Lynn Gallop has a bunch of Paso’s for sale. Google Gracewood Farm. Some have been used as lesson horses so they will be well broke. She’s near Apex
Lynn is a great person and has nice horses but most Paso are going to be a little small for me. I’m riding with warmbloods and they already call my 15’2" hand mare a pony! LOL
Did your MFT always have stifle problems? Did you do anything for the stifles when she was younger?
My SSH has always had bad stifles. I’ve had him since he was 4 1/2 (he’s now 7) and his back end frequently drops when his back leg locks. I’ve had him on SmartFlex® I Maintenance for two years. It helps, and so does getting him out regularly, but I guess he’ll always have locking stifles. I just wondered what you had done for your horse in the past, I hope what I’m doing will keep him sound.
Thanks
[QUOTE=walkers;5563813]
My 20 yr. old wonderful ,perfect ,MFT mare is having stifle problems that keep me from riding her on long rides now. She’ll be with me forever but I have faced reality and need to find a replacement . I have been looking for six months and haven’t found anything . The ones that look good turn out to be lame, or rough or… well we all know finding a good horse can be as tough as finding a good date. But hey I really need a horse!
Why is it so hard to find a sane, sound , smooth gaited horse. In the past I have always bought green horses but I am past that point in my life. I can’t take those risks anymore,. I need a trained horse that can be trusted.
Is it NC or a problem everywhere? I don’t think I’m to picky as color doesn’t matter, breed doesn’t matter as long as he is well gaited. A broken ankle and a bad back means I have to ride a smooth horse, I can’t post anymore.
What am I doing wrong. I need ideas
Thanks[/QUOTE]
Google spotted saddle horses in NC.
http://www.horseville.com/
Horseville seems to have more gaited types.
There are a couple new ones listed on NC Horse News.
WTB TWH
The MFT mare has always had locking stifle issues, sometimes when she was young she’d have to shake her leg in the morning to get out of her stall. She has lived outside 24/7 most of her life and does better not being stalled. I always warm her up for 15 minutes before letting her gait off. She is a very forward horse so I’m holding her back at the start of a ride. I’ve learned to avoid deep sand like some of the trails at Moss in southern pines. She does better with a firm but not hard footing. Once I laid her up for a year thinking she would never come back. She was around 11 at the time but she did heal and has been fine till a few months ago now age 20. I’m giving her the summer off and hoping she again returns to fitness. I’m very careful about building muscle before riding her hard or long. My spouse is a PT so I treat her very much like he treats his knee patients . It worked for a long time.
Still looking for a new horse …
http://www.equinenow.com/horse-ad-401767
http://www.horseville.com/php/search.php?state=North+Carolina&breed=Walker&b=1
Thank you for the link, it was very useful!
You can switch encoding parameters of end files such as example frequencyp
wav to mp3 encoder
you can put out a wanted ad on our endurance chat group-- gaitedenduranceriders (at) yahoogroups
Thanks for responding. I guess I’ll just have to keep giving him supplements and hope for the best.
It’s hard looking for a decent, gaited horse. I went through about thirty to find mine, and he still came with some issues. I thought people were lying to me about their horses, then I began to realize that most of them didn’t know any better. The industry attracts a lot of what I call “lifetime beginners”, people who never take lessons and have never been on a trained horse, so they don’t realize how a horse should behave.
I don’t know if you’re willing to travel, but this mare looks nice and well-trained http://www.cloud9walkers.com/Joy2009.htm I’ve noticed gaited horses go for about twice the price of non-gaited, so $7500 is more than reasonable for a trained trail horse. BTW, I’ve never been to that barn, I just surf the web a lot and if I were shopping, I’d definetly call about her.
[QUOTE=walkers;5608122]
The MFT mare has always had locking stifle issues, sometimes when she was young she’d have to shake her leg in the morning to get out of her stall. She has lived outside 24/7 most of her life and does better not being stalled. I always warm her up for 15 minutes before letting her gait off. She is a very forward horse so I’m holding her back at the start of a ride. I’ve learned to avoid deep sand like some of the trails at Moss in southern pines. She does better with a firm but not hard footing. Once I laid her up for a year thinking she would never come back. She was around 11 at the time but she did heal and has been fine till a few months ago now age 20. I’m giving her the summer off and hoping she again returns to fitness. I’m very careful about building muscle before riding her hard or long. My spouse is a PT so I treat her very much like he treats his knee patients . It worked for a long time.
Still looking for a new horse …[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure if this is too far north in VA for you, but I ride my TWH with a bunch of folks who got their horses from these folks. http://www.walking-after-midnight.com/
A bit pricey, I think, but the horses from them I’ve encountered seem well worth the price.
I think any gaited horse is pricey these days inspite of a bad horse ecomony. Personally many folks I know who have ridden trotting horses their whole life all of a sudden now want a gaited horse. I made the switch 18 months ago.
It could be that baby boomers now want a horse that keeps them riding without the hurting knees, hips, back etc.
I empthasize with you. I recently thought I wanted to get ride of my rather boring rock solid nice manners lazy TWH that I had to work to make him gait. I looked and everytime I came away from a horse that had issues–couldn;t catch them in the pasture, shies at everything, etc etc BUT THEY GAIT LIKE FOOLS!!! I do not want something with issues, I am too old for a horse like that. I don;t care if they gait perfectly every minute of every day if they are idiots otherwise. Everytime I came home and realized what a polished diamond I really had and he is handsome too.
So I sent my lazy horse off to boot camp for 8 days and now we gait nicely thank you. I only carry a dressage whip (which I call a donkey stick–re: 2 mules for sister sara) and have to remind him of his ability to gait properly.
I hate horse shopping. Feel for ya. There are a ton of gaited horses down here as well. Good luck
If a Tennessee Walker might be on your list, I am acquainted with these folks and have ridden with them.
http://www.eveningshadefarm.com/
They are honest and do not mis-represent their horses.
Or you could look on Craigslist in Tennessee, or the classified ads in Middle Tennessee’s bigger newspaper, “The Tennessean”.
Except for Evening Shade Farm, you can’t hardly give a good broke, well papered TWH away in my area. There’s almost no market for them.
Unless one has a very expensive show horse, IMHO, the bottom fell out of the Walking Horse Industry (at least in my area), worse than it did with the Arab industry back in the 80’s.
I have turned down a couple good-looking, well broke TWH trail horses, with papers, that were well under $500.
Not only do I not have the space or money for extra horses, but I am semi-retired and it takes everything in me to take care of my four<----just in case anyone’s wondering if the horses are so great, why didn’t I take them. I am not about throwing a horse out to pasture while trying to “flip it” for a couple extra dollars:)
Thanks for the ideas’ I am looking for TWH or MFT. I like a horse with powerful big motor, good front end (reach) and very forward. I’ve been lucky to have three of them( perfect LOL) but two are now retired. I always bought them green as its so hard to find a broke TWh that doesn’t have a problem or they wouldn’t be for sale. well I’m well past the age of training babies and it takes a good while to make a safe trail horse.
So I feel stuck and as some posters have mentioned as in any breed no one usually sells the good ones.
I guess I’m hoping for that young person who now loves boys or is headed to off the collage.
I don’t know how in any breed you find a finished horse for sale W/o a problem. Who sells a good horse? The other issue with gaited is most of the sellers know nothing about gaited horses so it might be a good sweet horse but they can’t gait at all.
What i wouldn’t do for a big moving horse than was sane and sound. Sigh…
