I rode him for 15 or 20 minutes at the walk & trot (mainly walk) to try him out in preparation to buying him. He was not sweating after. I do not find this cruel. I think the bend & flex work I did with him made him sore because it caused him to use his back for the first time in his life. The heavy western saddle might have also contributed-not sure how good a fit it was. It was what was provided.
He was balky the time I rode him bareback & he wasn't sore after. It was a sourness to walk away from some horses by the fenceline (backing, bucking, rearing) & then a rear, bolt, buck when he saw a girl sitting on a chair holding her horse. He will need some firmness to fix these problems but I sorted him out even bareback & he was good at the end.
He is not for sale cheap because of all these things. His market price is just over double what they are offering but they have 15 horses & only 5 are in use so the feed bills are adding up & they need to sell the youngsters. First they offered me a lease so that I would pay for the food etc. Then when I declined, they offered me the other one for a discount rate because I would be stabling it there. Then when I decided I didn't like him, they asked me to ride this bay & offered a half share of him for the price of the pinto. I still wasn't interested cause I don't want half a horse, a leased horse or an expensive horse. Then last night, just before I was going to draw the money for the pinto, he called & said that he had just had a meeting & funds were really tight so he had to get rid of some horses quickly & he would give me the bay for just a bit more than I was getting the pinto for. Now I have a dilemma.