I help a friend look after her horse, she wants to buy a second one . She is a first time owner (was going to loan but suddenly decided she would buy one this spring) and currently has a teenage horse who is very well behaved and a real confidence giver, is not spooky and has very good manners.
She's now decided her second one has to be a tb (as when she was young she always dreamed of owning one) and she likes the idea of owning a tb.
I've not owned before but I have loaned so I know the commitment involved and how hard it can be (eg winter).
She currently has the one horse on a routine of exercise twice a day which I am doing 50 percent of and I'm finding it exhausting as I work 10 hours a day with a 30 min commute, in a physical job.
Anyway the second horse, well we found one I rode him, perfect , responsive very non spooky, I was ready to buy him there and then.
She tries the horse and nearly falls off because when asking the horse to do a faster trot she did a pony club kick (the way she was taught as a child -she learnt briefly as a child then didnt ride until very recently), the horse broke into canter and she wasn't expecting it and ended up round his neck.
She decides the horse is not right for her as he is "too advanced" so we start looking again. I trying to steer her towards IDs and ISH , cobs etc and with a bit of age on them as she is not a brilliant or confident rider and also the horse would need to live out 24/7, so im thinking sturdiness rather then a thoroughbred who needs rugging up to the max. As she can't afford livery and wants the "simplicity of living out". She just wants a tb and no older than 12, I feel she wants an older confidence giving horse but every horse I tell her about she dismisses saying "too old".
She has said that she intends to exercise both twice a day, I'm highly dubious as I find it a struggle to do the one horse at the moment with light mornings and evenings and decent summer ground . I keep emphasising how hard winter will be and how impossible it will be to keep to a schedule of exercise twice daily, what if the ground is hard, what if it snows? What if we don't have the time, we do both have jobs.
Anyway she has now decided she wants to retrain an ex racehorse. As they are a breed she likes , cheap and if she does it," she will feel a huge sense of achievement"
We have no school,just a field the horses will graze in too.
Sorry for the rant but she is just so naive and I'm trying to help her into horse ownership . One moment she is saying, don't worry I'll do all the retraining if you don't want to , the next minute she asks me to jump her existing horse as she has never jumped and doesn't feel confident enough. I've said TBs can be spooky and flighty. She is fine with that as she says her existing horse is like that - she's not in the slightest , I've never ridden a more laid back horse. I feel the existing horse has been so easy to look after and ride that she thinks all horses are that easy.
I just feel she should stick at one horse.
Am I being negative? Or realistic? Is her next horse going to be like Pie from national velvet and just by some miracle easy to train by a complete novice and end up being a diamond of a horse. Did I mention she will not pay more than about 600 for her next horse.
Opinions please.....
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Am I being negative of realistic
100 replies
tallulahturtle · 03/07/2013 00:30
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