Shopping for a kid's horse

I hear a lot about the current horse economy out there. Cheap horses, free horses, horses being dumped/turned loose.... I've heard it. Recently, I got to test the economy by being assigned the task of finding a good gelding for a teenage novice rider at a reasonable price. We weren't looking for anything fancy, show quality, registered or even perfectly sound, just something pretty broke with a good temperament for the rider to expand her skills on. We were even looking at older horses, around 20. Should be a piece of cake in this market, especially since we were willing to accept kind of ugly and deal with minor soundness issues, right? Wrong.... very wrong.

The biggest problem in the market out there right now, to my view, is older horses that aren't broke, aren't trained and don't even get handled much. I was upfront with everyone that I contacted that I was shopping for a safe horse for a novice teenager. I was able to weed out about 70% due to honest sellers or my own intuition based on the sellers' responses. I went out to look at horses that wouldn't stand to mount, then tried to take off under saddle, a horse that cow-kicked every time you touched a hind leg, horses that hadn't been ridden in years, but were allegedly very broke at some time in the past, but couldn't seem to recall any skills under saddle, a horse you couldn't bridle and various other equines with no manners or bad manners brought on by being spoiled or just flat not being handled for years.

In previewing advertisements I was appalled at the number of pasture pets for sale. Older geldings either never started or started briefly (30-90) days at two or three and then turned out back home where they've lounged about the pasture and now the owner is trying to sell them at 9+ years old. I have started and re-started older horses, mostly broodmares and recently-gelded stallions, and it's no picnic. It's much harder to develop a work ethic in a 15 year old that has gotten their way most of their life than in a 3 year old that's still figuring out the order of things. And, I have to say, with the market the way it is, if I want a project for myself I can find a nice two or three year old for the same or less money than the owners want for the spoiled 12 year old. But, I digress.

Back on the kid's horse shopping tour, I did manage to at least not get hurt and leave everyone with a diplomatic, "Thanks for your time, but he's not quite what we're looking for." Finally, when it looked like this was going to be a year-long project, I spotted an older gelding on Craigslist. He sounded nice and the owner was selling due to not having much time for him due to her career. She was honest about every quirk he might have ever had and had owned him for 15 of his 18 years so, feeling guardedly optimistic, I went out to look.

Unbelievable. The horse lead, tied, stood for saddling, was good with his feet, stood at the mounting block and is broke and trained and sound! Hallelujah! He's trained to second level as a dressage horse, although only shown through first level, was shown western at some point and rides outside on the trails. He's 18, but sound, and even a nice looking horse with papers. I actually enjoyed test-riding the horse. The true test, the teenage novice riding, went well, too. What a gem!

Needless to say, the horse was purchased and, even better, the teenager is taking lessons from the horse's trainer for a month while he stays at his current barn. Things are going well.

So, what did I learn about the market?

There are a lot of cheap horses out there, but, they should be cheap and they would have been cheap before the market crashed. The only market for a pasture fat spoiled brat gelding that's 15 years old and not broke is the slaughter market, and that's pretty much kaput. Before the slaughter market went away, those horses were worth around $500. Now they're worth nothing, since they don't have any value beyond being pasture decoration and winter feed is expensive.

There are a lot of sellers that really, truly believe that their horse is an angel and that being "spirited" or having issues with ground manners doesn't make them inappropriate mounts for novice kids. These aren't malicious people, they just don't know any better (often novices themselves), but they will waste your time when you drive out to find out what the horse really is.

There also are diamonds out there, that maybe aren't even rough, but just aren't marketed quite right. I inquired about the horse that was purchased after viewing a Craigslist ad that the owner had put up. I passed on the same horse when viewing the ad published on Dreamhorse by the trainer. The DH ad put the horse at a temperament rating of 8 and used the term "a lot of horse"-- both red flags for me when looking for a mount for a novice. What the trainer was trying to convey is the amount of training that the horse has, but she made it sound like he's hot and reactive, which he is not. At any rate, the teenager now has a great horse and the horse has his own girl again. The previous owner is happy, the girl is happy, the horse is happy and even I'm happy... so happy to not have to get on any more supposedly "broke" horses for awhile. I'll happily keep riding my four year old who is well on his way to being truly broke.