Horse Gossip Thread

[EweSheep]

Well I've seen some "cheaters" on the distance riding trails but they are farther and fewer in between.

 

[michickenwrangler]

The few times it's happened in Michigan, it's been from people "forgetting" to do loops or "accidentally" taking shortcuts

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

There is a woman that owns a stud at the barn. Her FAVORITE saying is:

"The only difference between a stud and a gelding is that a gelding can't get a mare pregnant."

 

[welsummerchicks]

Well she sounds like a practical sort.

Fact is, though, some stallions are extremely easy and cooperative...and others are not.

Some stallions are very well trained to behave themselves, even trained to drop or not drop. Stud farm I worked at, the young stallions were trained when to do their job and when not to right from the start, and they got some pretty harsh discipline if they did not listen. I'd say 99% of them could be competed and would not even nicker. Witnessing the training was not for the weak at heart, but those horses were taught to behave themselves, no exceptions allowed. It was a business, end of discussion.

And then there are the ones who aren't.

Some breeds tend to behave better than others, too. I feel it's a combination of what has been allowed to get into the gene pool (some breed people are not exactly selective and much behavior is inherited) and handled (penned up all the time, and some are owned by....em....people who delight in having an out of control animal, they think it makes themselves seem more....er...cool....)

 

[mandelyn]

I recently got over being completely rattled by a recent experience. Well, a couple of experiences... courtesy of one person and her horses. I have this friend (a great horse woman, she taught me to drive a cart with her Shire stud!). She went to look at a Shire mare that was local... weird for that breed down in Tennessee. I went with her, and we met this really giant beefcake of a sweet mare. Didn't buy her, she'd spend more money in a paddock for her than for the horse herself, and she already had two... really I think she went just to look. We met this seemingly nice woman as well, who had a bit of everything. Cremello QH mare, Appendix paint mare, Saddlebred mare, and a silver bay QH mare. Plus about 15 minis. And a handsome Friesian stallion.

Guess what she did with all those mares? Bred them to the Friesian stud. Guess what she was trying to get out of those foals? Starting at $4500 in THIS current market... with halter and lead training only at 3 years old. One of them caught my eye, a very pretty filly out of the Saddlebred mare. I think they call that cross a Georgia Grande? She was sticking with Half Friesian though and that registry of "Friesian Sport Horses".

So we started talking, and I started going out there a couple days a week to play with the filly. Started playing with the minis too, they really needed work. She fed them, always had clean water, stalls were clean... just never got around to handling the babies much. One day we spent 8 hours clipping minis to get them ready for auction... since you're hard pressed to get $700 out of unproven and too-tall minis off a no-name strain of Buckaroo lines. Rather than come down in price, she wanted to send them to Auction.

One little feisty guy I LOVED. Said I would give $400 for him if she no-saled him at the auction. She had in her head set limits they needed to sell for. I get that, she put a lot of money into them with care and breeding. Wish she would have done further research and picked a better stud... but whatever. So what happens? She sells "MY" pony for $225. I didn't have an auction number, so it's not like I could have bid and got him for $250 instead of the $400 we agreed on if she no saled him. So I was... disgruntled.

I kept going out there to work with the filly a bit. Just ground work, wasn't saddle breaking this horse or doing any favors after the mini incident. I was hoping she would come down on her price a bit or something, but I couldn't be ok with spending that much on a half breed no-name horse. It's not like the sire or dam had show records of any kind. Maybe 10 years ago she would have brought much more than that out of novelty. She was so very sweet, calm, sane, hard working. Perfect mind. Would have been super easy to break.

But no. There she sits to this day, with that price tag. Been for sale for over 2 years now. More babies on the way of course, in utero for $3500 each. Doesn't much matter what mare they come out of. Which it should, shouldn't it?

The unproven sire is also for sale for $24,000. His excuse for not being proven was a broken bone he suffered as a yearling, effectively ruining his chances with any sport beyond light riding. But she takes him down some tough trails on a semi-regular basis?

It's just irksome that a perfectly fine horse is sitting in that small gravel paddock, with no one doing anything with her. With her mind, and how easy she was but not at all lazy... I would have given $3,000. But for $4500, I can get one already broke that is also half Friesian/Saddlebred. I looked around for reference sake.

 

[welsummerchicks]

After a while, you will learn, and get so you don't get involved in these sort of situations any more, and then you will feel better.

As Doctor Phil would say, 'So...how's that workin' for ya'? You gonna hang around some more, and have more of the same things happen, and have more of the same feelings?

This is the first website where I've seen these sorts of complaints, that they wanted to buy a horse(or other stock) from someone I did a favor for, but the horse sold to someone else (often at auction) for less money.

I'm going to just take a swag and say the situation looks very different to the seller. I even would say, in the same situation, MOST sellers aren't going to like all this, 'I'll buy it when' or 'I like that one but I want to....'.

'I'll buy that horse for X if he doesn't sell at the auction' sounds a lot more like, 'I'm hanging around to get a favor and a cheap horse - I talk about wanting to buy something all the time, but I always have an excuse why I have to wait. And....after you come home from the auction and are desperate and miserable, because you didn't make your target prices, or your minimums and have a bunch that didn't even sell I'm going to start dickering and dealing and have you right where I want you, and you'll have to give me what I want because I'm your 'Friend' and I do stuff here'.

If you want to buy an animal, what you need to do is buy it NOW, when it is for sale, at the farm. Not when the sun trines Jupiter, after the auction, after the High Holy Days or Wal Pershnock, on a Thursday when the stars align. Just BUY IT. Say, 'I'll give you X for Daisy TODAY, RIGHT NOW'. And the owner may say, 'No, I want Y' and you come back and say, 'how about X plus Z', and the owner says 'Done'. You pay cash for the animal, and take it to your house, and put it in your barn.

It works out a whole lot better that way.

I'd also say, it is really, really, really, not a good idea to 'hang around' and 'do favors' and 'help out', and then think to yourself, 'well now I'm going to say what I want and I should get it'.

People lose respect for people that do that - very, very quickly.

When you are ready to buy, show up with your money, deal, and buy the animal. Otherwise, stay home.

Nothing else really works quite as well.

 

[michickenwrangler]

I love Saddlebred crosses, they have so much Thoroughbred breeding in them that a Draft or Friesian outcross to them is almost like a TB outcross. The woman I bought my horse from had a beautiful pinto Percheron/Saddlebred cross.

Like the "designer dogs" a lot of breeders I think are trying to create designer horses. I see a lot of Arab/Friesian crosses advertised in the Arab magazines. Nearly all of them are bay, very nice looking horses but the breeders are asking $5000+ for yearlings.

That Andalusian breeder who was sane (not the dressage only one) called my friend last week and said that she would drop her price on the unbroke 2 yr olds from $18,000 to $14,000. My friend does have money, she's married to one of the wealthiest families in the county so she could "afford" it, but I would have a hard time justifying that much money for lower level dressage and trail riding since so many other cheaper just as nice horses cost only about 10% of that. If I had goals of international level, I could see it more, but she doesn't.

 

[EweSheep]

Love that quote, RoPo! It certainly make sense about stallions and geldings LOL! Even the ones who has been castrated in later years.

I would never offer more than I can afford on a horse. I have my limits and stick to it. Later down the line, the breeder/owner might call me back up and say "I've thought about you since I could not sell my horse after specific amount of time, would you still be interested?" It happens more often than not.

Oh I know about those Boone's minis, and there were a few oversized mares in his pasture. Nice guy, met him a few times and he swapped for a filly of mine, a roan appy for his Hemlock Brooks mare. Best deal I got out of him. I even sent my mare to be bred to his bay stallion he had (Lord of the Isles lines) but my mare wanted nothing to do with him so I took her back home. However, that original Buckaroo I saw him in his stall, he was taller than any of the stallions he got out there on the farm (I'm hoping that is the correct Buck because he had two of them, one was the senior stallion that was sold and the other was his son...it was his son that I saw.) He had a couple of little bitty mares, almost dwarfism in a way and he likes to produce some odd looking foals out of those tiny mares. UGH! The smaller they are, the better he sells them. Believe it or not, Boone's minis had a lot of oversizes going on in the lines, it is a hit or miss.

WC I love Dr Phil's quotes LOL. Even sometimes he ticked me off but he hits the nail on the head too many times. The BUY IT NOW tactics WORKS! The seller wants the horse sold and on top of that, he does not have to take it to the auction. Doing favors in hoping to get a price cut would not help many sellers, learned that once.

Had an abusive lady owner who thought her stallion was the best but I look at that stallion and thought, you must be OUTTA of your mind! That stallion was a piece of crap, didn't have the correct conformation of a Paso and his disposition was NASTY and it has passed down to his offsprings in the nasty form. I was very unimpressed. The two mares she had that I thought she struck a gold mine was an older mare whose name I do not remember anymore but looks like Sin Verguenza/Don Cunda and Mar de Plata daughter, both of these mares are sweet as they go and they love the attention I gave them. That woman sucks at being a trainer, her training methods was kinda of nasty and abusive, she would take a whip to them constantly to get them to "fino fino" when they do not have the ability to fino, their gaits are too relaxed. After I left that farm (was a barn manager there), her business went south shortly afterwards, and her "prized" stallion was finally gelded when too many people told her that he is not worth the stallion and his offsprings were not brining in the money. The only thing that was worthy was the registration papers which had some excellent horses in the background.

I do not know what to make of people who are so firm on the prices of horses so high at this time and day and want them gone yesterday. Duh!

 

[welsummerchicks]

Mi, no one is going to get any 'international success' in dressage on a 15,000 dollar weanling, not in the normal world.

When I looked at weanlings five years ago, they were fairly average weanlings I was looking at for 15k. Would make nice lower level horses or horses for small local-regional showing.

International-capable Warmblood youngsters sell for far more than that.

You often hear people say, 'I'd NEVER pay that for a horse, how crazy'.

In fact, people very often do, and they're not crazy. They just have more money to spend on a horse than you do. The horse is likely insured, and embryo transfer or stud fees might help recoup some of his cost. But in general, it's not that. The person is willing to pay a price for the thrill and rewards, and willing to give up other things to do it.

To be fair, people who buy 50,000 dollar dressage horses, don't generally make 50,000 dollars a year. They make more. It hurts less for them to spend that.

People have their passions, and what's important to them. If they want to spend a lot of money on their passion and have goals they want to strive for in competition, God bless 'em. If I went out and won the lottery, I'd do the same. In a heartbeat.

There are really different worlds in dressage - the schooling and small recognized shows where most of us live, where any one can have fun on almost any horse. Any obedient horse and a rider that does a little homework can win and the owner have fun.

The 'breed' stuff is a whole nother ball game. There are dressage 'breed' classes at breed shows where the classes are far less competitive than open competition. And there are 'all breed awards', where in general, award winning scores run rather low.

Above that, only very good horses with hard working amateurs and pros are going to qualify for the regional championships or do well at the tougher bigger recognized shows.

Above that, the big national shows are where many horses, even ridden by pros are going to never win because they're just not good enough, that's for pros and only the toughest amateurs who really devote themselves to the effort....AND buy appropriate horses and train them very, very well.

Internationally....well, even there, there's a bush league, a pretty darn good league and a top 200 horses and riders in the world. And yawning chasms between each of THEM even!!!

 

[Bunnylady]

For sure, the closest most of us will ever get to a Moorlands Totilas is watching him on YouTube!

I like Ropo's quote, too. The barn where I work has more than its share of studly geldings. Most of the boys are reasonably well behaved together, but we have several that can't even share a fenceline because they will tear each other up. Of course, having a mare there that seems perpetually in season doesn't help!