Which horse would you choose? *pics*

[Cloverleaf Farm]

S*T*A*R :

Quote:
I'm kinda sorta takin lessons right now...... and i am joining a 4-H club for poultry and possibly horses(my friends told me i could use their horses for anything). But i'd be getting a horse for their ministry. Mostly for me to ride, but when i'm not there they can use her/him.

Make sure they SIGN something saying that they take full responsibility if something happens to your horse while they are using it.​

 

[S*T*A*R]

Quote:
I'm kinda sorta takin lessons right now...... and i am joining a 4-H club for poultry and possibly horses(my friends told me i could use their horses for anything). But i'd be getting a horse for their ministry. Mostly for me to ride, but when i'm not there they can use her/him.

Make sure they SIGN something saying that they take full responsibility if something happens to your horse while they are using it.

it would be ok lol i would be letting them ride her for boarding payments.

 

[Omniskies]

I did everything wrong when getting a horse and couldn't have gotten any luckier. But even after getting really lucky, I still agree with everyone else. Since you don't know what to look for in a horse you should really have someone else helping you look for one.

That's not being mean, either. It's really difficult for anyone with an untrained eye to know whether a horse's butt looks right, or what its temperment is going to be in the long run. Unless you've been obsessively studying horse anatomy and behavior, it's a crapshoot.

Talk to whomever is training you to ride. Odds are they can help you find a horse that suits your needs. If you are a beginner, try a less high strung breed. Do research and decide what you will be doing with your horse. Just for trail riding? Look at Quarterhorses and gaited breeds (Foxtrotters, Saddlebreds, etc).

 

[S*T*A*R]

*sigh* ok

 

[RabbitMage]

S*T*A*R :

*sigh* ok

I know it's frustrating, but trust me, it will make you happier in the long run.

When I got my first horse I ended up buying the first horse I went to see. I was told he was green but sweet, and just needed someone to ride him. So me in my fifteen year old wisdom said hey, I can do that! Turns out said horse was actually a half-wild Mustang who was afraid of saddles, pads, ropes, velcro, people, shadows, rocks, trees, everything. It took four months before we could saddle him, and several more before my braver friend rode him. He went rodeo horse on her the second time she tried it and she refused to ride him after that. 11 months after I bought him I sold him to a trainer.

I never did get to ride him.​

 

[patandchickens]

The thing is, in my experience there is a VERY STRONG tendency for inexperienced riders, especially if they are enthusiastic, to read a bunch of books and websites and try to learn everything there is about conformation analysis, and then believe they can apply it constructively. With the fairly-consistent result that they do things like buy a good-looking horse that is dead lame and/or totally temperamentally unsuitable; or buy a horse with a nice shoulder and topline and neck but whose legs are a train wreck and the only reason it vets sound is because it was heavily buted up; or get all dead set on a horse with great-looking legs and feet *from the side view* but that are actually extremely crooked when viewed from the front or back and, again, typically unsound or temperamentally unsuited.

The odds are just REALLY not in your favor, if you try to apply book-learning when you are still inexperienced with horses. (Actually to a large degree I am skeptical of book-learning about conformation, PERIOD -- a lot of things that are popularly written do NOT jibe with my, or many other peoples', actual experience with large numbers of horses. At the very least, book-learning is not much good without a lot of ground-truthing behind it

)

So I think it is actually doing you a service not to lead you down that path

You also need to think about the legal and insurance angles of this share-boarding thing a lot more carefully.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[welsummerchicks]

What patnchicks said.

 

[S*T*A*R]

hmmm

 

[Orchid]

To the original question: I would not buy either of those horses as a riding horse. I might buy one because I felt badly for it so it could fluff around my pasture, but that's my cross to bear.

I've known so many beginners who bought a completely unsuitable horse for various reasons:

It's so cheap!
It's a cute little foal!
It's so cheap!
I love the color!
It's so cheap!
My girlfriend's brother's best friend's aunt's cousin's cat says these are the best horses EVER!
It's so cheap!
I can make money on (fill in the blank breed of horse), any idiot knows that!
It's so cheap!

And invariably, they were disappointed. Some of them were lucky they weren't killed; I can think of a concussion, a broken arm and a broken tailbone right off the top of my head that were caused by beginner riders unsuited to their new mount. The most ironic part of it all is that all of these people could have had good advice from experienced horsepeople, had they cared to listen to it. Instead many of them ended their dream of enjoying a horse before it even started, by buying and selling an unsuitable horse and vowing never to own one again.

You've gotten good advice here, OP. Get a knowledgeable person to help you find a horse you can learn from and enjoy.

 

[S*T*A*R]

So.... what were all your peoples first horses?