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BUYING A HORSE. I had seen an ad for a nice little QH mare, “kid safe” it said. I emailed for more info. As days passed I decided maybe we should go take a look, but as fate would have it the mare had sold that very day (in hindsight—what a common story.) I am not in NEED of another horse, but always have an eye out for good safe kids’ horses and can use one now for my daughter’s next step as well as a lesson horse. “Julie” (Yup- made up name), the owner, and I began to communicate. I only stated that I was looking for a horse as my 7 yr old daughter’s next step—I offered no background into our horsemanship, ownerships, nada. A while later Julie sent me an email telling me of this amazing App gelding they’d picked up, and he would be available at $1500, 12 years old, blah blah blah. Soon after pics were sent, and I told her I’d think on it. Not liking Apps very much, and preferring mares, I wasn’t convinced.
A side note: Admittedly, I do not
often go the dealer route when looking for horses—especially a kid’s horse.
I believe in history and ownership and relationships that people form with
horses and don’t find that this is the manner most dealers work in, often due
simply to time constraints. There are, of course, exceptions (such as our local
friend Candice) but we stick with what works for us, and for me, that is buying
from personal owners. So the humor and irony in this story is compounded by the
fact that I am trying like the devil to have an open mind even though my
suspicious, disbelieving self says “Don’t be stupid!” So I call my friend Kelley and she and her son come along with Emi and me, with me thinking, “good, now I’ve got two little ones to ride this horse to see how he acts”…. And off we drive at 8am on a lovely Sunday morning. Out the Thruway, following the directions he had given me, even though I thought they were off (my husband is from that area and I went to college out there) we quickly find ourselves lost. It is 10:10am. We are not lost as in “Where the heck are we?” but lost as this is not going thaw way it should… So we turn back to the main roads and call the house, telling the wife we are on our way and hope to be there in 20-30 minutes, but not knowing where they actually reside that was just a guess. She offered no hints as to our ETA so I presumed I was on target. We find it! And it is OUT THERE—not close to much of anything. Seems nice enough as we pull in—nothing fancy, but ok (although oddly quiet) And with some silly cut off trees with sensor light stuck in the trunk up high (Good for Kelley’s giggles). We stop by the arena as I had been instructed, got out, started suiting up kids boots/coats/helmets and out walks “The Man”. I guess the image is a bit like the old Cowboy, “Curly” on the movie “City Slickers”—just a thinner, less menacing one. As he approaches I say hello and “Sorry for being a little later than I’d hoped!” to which he responds “Yeh. Me too. When were you hoping??” Kelley and I share looks thinking, what’s with THAT greeting, but we both pass it off as dry humor. He then tells me he doesn’t really have the time to show us the horse since we are so late, and I say “Geez, your wife only said you were busy this afternoon, and it IS only 10:40 right now….”. Again, Kelley and I share wondrous looks of confusion and still think he is an off-his-rocker-old horse dealer and just go with it. So I cajole him, elbow to the ribs, kidding around with “Yeh, yeh but lets’ go pull the boy out so we can take a look”, and off wanders our own version of Cowboy Curly. As Kelley and I follow him into the horse barn, he goes off
to the far end and opens the door to what looks to be a 20+ yr old app—not the
sort-of-pretty 12 year old we saw pictures of! (Yes “Aha” number 12 is now
ding ding dinging in my mind but on I push….) Yep, push I do. I pushed my
daughter right up to that stall doorway saying “take a look And out he comes with his big pancake foundery feet, clomping down the aisle until Crazy Curly tap-tap-taps the lead and throws it to the ground in his own crazy version of ground tie. Now Crazy Curly begins his 27 minute dissertation on his horseman skills. He has part ownership and holds creative rights to methods currently recognized as Parelli (the shaking rope attention getting), Clinton Anderson (rope halter), some Shrake, Lyons and Lord knows who else. He is THE trainer of the times, and certainly of the area. Trainers 20 years younger are 10 years behind in their methods while he, Lord of the Scary place, has methods that are up to date and train FAST. Yep- he trains these horses—by the way he trains these 10-20 year old horses in the 3-10 days he owns them after buying at auction. He is so reknowned in the area, the others often ask if a horse has been “Rockyized” in reference to whether or not he has applied his stamp of crazy training and approval. As he talks on, he mentioned that the only thing wrong with this horse is that he has scratches. That’s it. I’d been looking at those legs that were indeed very hairy, but seemed lumpy. As I’d reach down to feel his leg, he’d back a step, Kelley reached out to stop him and Curly reprimanded her for that! I was feeling splints the size of golf balls. The man was nuts. So he tells us why Kelley should not stop the horse from backing over me, and continues on, to which I play along with grunts of encouragement, and “Oh yeses” and “sounds right to me’s”. Kelley is muted by shock I think. I am pushing little by little for the next step and have noticed the kids keep leaving, This worries me that the interest is seemingly NOT there. Emi, my 7 year old daughter, tried asking him about the horse and he just talked over her, teaching us everything we need to know about horses and training as we stand there looking at the dopey-eyed, sway backed Harry Henderson app. As it seems that his talking can go on forever, I try to gently nudge him toward saddling this old beast. He, however, has other ideas. He informs me there JUST ISN’T TIME. He has to leave by 12noon. Now I can’t hold back anymore and tell him his wife said they had to get hay that afternoon around 2pm, it is only going on 11am, so WHY CAN’T WE RIDE THIS HORSE? He then tells me, he actually needs to leave before noon and he is getting very agitated with me, although remember I have gone along on his crazy ride without any argument. He tells me he WILL NOT rush this and if I think I can look at a horse to know if I should buy it in less than 2 hours I don’t know anything. Now I am dumbfounded. Seriously speechless. I turn to Kelley with a WT%$#% expression and she harshly whispers at me “WE DROVE 2 HOURS!!!???”. So of course, I turn and tell him the same, “We just drove 2 hours, can’t you just let her sit up there to go around a few times”. Mistake. He popped the cork and got all sorts of nutsy. The kids have seriously vacated the barn by now, thank goodness. He starts yanking Old Appy back toward the stall, spewing his venom at my stupidity and his expert horsemanship, knowledge, sales abilities and all. I look at at Kell, nodded at the door, told him he was a nut and left. No screams, no freak outs (He could have out-done me with any of that anyway) and I told the “kid get in the cars” (instead of “kids get in the car”!)—the only sign that I was completely freaked out---my speech skills went away. Truly- we drove off. That was that. Folks that know me can’t believe I didn’t “have more to say” to him, but, he actually scared us a bit. SO you are wondering why I would tell this ridiculous story? Well it does fall into my HINTS when it comes to horse-buying. So here they are, my horse buying hints:
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