Head meets desk ... repeatedly

I know most people probably don't look at Craigslist, LSN, and the horses for sale Facebook groups on a regular basis.  Horse people should.  Maybe if the horse community at large was aware of how large the "problem" is, we would all be more responsible.  Better stewards.  Make more responsible decisions when it comes to breeding, training, and selling.  More willing to help our our neighbor who thought they'd be good and buy their kids a pony without knowing the first thing about horse care.

Among today's winners .... horses #24, #25, and #26 for sale (seriously, that's how the ads are titled) from "the boss has too many horses, needs to sell some" -- and they are all yearlings and 2 year olds.  So, "boss" has known for at least 2 years that "boss" has too many, but has continued to breed.  And, what's "boss" breeding?  Tennessee Walking Horses in middle Tennessee, where the asking price is all of $300.  It costs more than $300 to feed a pregnant mare, weanling and yearling properly. So, how do you even justify breeding multiple mares if you can't get more than $300 for their offspring???

An older pony who is "too old to ride" - although in all her photos she is in good weight - but the seller doesn't know how old she is and doesn't seem to care.  Probably someone who doesn't know much and hasn't been helped or given any guidance.  (Chances are, pony foundered at some point and walks like her feet hurt, leading to the "too old to ride" myth).  Sorry, but look at the endurance Arabian still winning at 37.  The average age of an NFR qualifier 2 years ago was 23 or 24.  Some horses need to be retired; many others do best with some sort of job, even if it is light rides around the pasture a few times a week.

$75 and $100 "good" saddles.  Newsflash:  If it is a $75 saddle, you don't want to ride your horse in it.  A poorly fitting saddle can cause all kinds of issues - sore withers, sore backs - have a horse that bucks, rears or doesn't want to move out?  Check your saddle fit!

Horse's fault is that he throws his head and sometimes pops up -- Ever have his teeth floated?  Chances are no, and chances are that's because he's never seen a vet or you never listened when the vet suggested it might need to be done.  Sorry, but that's $80 you really do need to spend every year, whether your vet does it or you have an 'equine dentist' do it.    

3 year old stallion is pastured with geldings -- and mares -- but "doesn't know he's a boy."  Excuse me, but I'm sure he does.  Even though he is your sweet, innocent baby that you think needs to keep his nuts for no good reason at all, if a mare's in heat and around a stallion, nature is nature.  And, I'd bet next year's hay that you'll have some surprise additions to your pasture sometime this year.

CL Winner of the Week

Ad:

Beautiful mare for sale - $500 (Summertown)

I have two horse for sale they r not registered or gaited. Sugar is a beautiful strawberry roan for sale. She rides n has also been trained to pull a buggy, tho it has been a few years .' She is 17 years old n is about 14.5 hands. I'm asking 500. For her. Also have for sale her paint colt he will be two next month. He's very good looking horse an really sweet. He is ready to be trained. He is my daughters horse n she is asking 400. Please call 931-xxx-xxx thank you n god bless 

In summary.  You owned an unregistered mare and three years ago decided to breed her.  Probably about the last time you used her to "pull a buggy."  Now you have your unregistered mare and her unregistered stud colt.  He's almost 2 which somehow qualifies him as "ready to be trained" - does this mean you think you should be riding him already?  Is he halter broke?  I'm sure he's probably not gelded, but he's almost 2 and he's living with your mare.  Anyone want to guess whether the mare is bred back to her son?  

I'm not touching the text-speak or the other aspects that make me question WTF.  

God Bless is right.  Someone please upgrade both these horses.    

Not exactly an equine observation, but we can call it "horse related" ...

I grew up in a small town in the middle of small town farm country in the northeast.  Our local feed store was "local" and you could bet that the person working the counter knew you by how many bags of which livestock feed you came in to pick up each week.  I'm sure that's not much different, no matter what part of the country you grew up in.  You could always count on a couple of farmers buying baling twine or rake teeth, the older ladies picking up garden seeds and the retirees standing off to the side sharing stories of the good old days. 

Enter the Big Box Store.  In this case, Tractor Supply Company, who built success on selling, what else?  Tractor parts, farm supplies, and livestock needs.  Then, sometime in the past few years, their ad campaigns have proudly boasted "We don't sell tractors."  Managers near retirement - managers who, by the way, knew customers by their names and needs, who didn't mind the corner of the store becoming the meeting place for retirees in the middle of the week - replaced.  Somewhere along the way, becoming successful and growing meant losing sight of what brought them success in the first place.  Now, in place of "Made in America" and International Harvester parts, we see racks of cheap tools and dog toys.   

I suppose the story is much the same across "corporate America." 

It's just a shame that, as part of "success," that these Big Box stores also drive the small-town feeds-and-anything-you-need stores out of business.  It's not just the stores we're losing.  We're losing that connection to our neighbors.  We're losing that connection to the store that not only knows but cares what we need on Saturday morning.  We're losing that free advice that the small store worker would gladly share on feeding the rejected calf or giving the new puppy his first vaccines or which gate hardware would work best for that particular project.  We're losing that place to stop in and get the chainsaw fixed while browsing the bulletin board of community announcements and livestock for sale. 

How we spend our money can affect whether this trend continues.  Will it? 

 

Horses and Emotions

I think it is fair to say that anyone who has worked around horses for any length of time knows that horses both have emotions and are receptive to human emotions.

Horses are a fight-or-flight animal; they feel fear (for themselves) and they pick up on fear (coming through a rider's seat and legs or coming through a handler's body language).  A horse may react differently around a calm, quiet person than a nervous, hyperactive person.  I've seen high-strung horses react completely differently to a low-key handler than to an extroverted, outspoken owner.

Horses have good memories:  I've seen horses that have been separated for months immediately bond back together when re-joined in the same herd. 

All that said, there are certain differences between a horse's emotions and that of a human owner.  For example, a woman may feel the need to have children to feel complete.  A mare does not share that feeling.  Nature gives her a heat cycle; that doesn't automatically mean she wants to make a baby every year for her entire life.

A horse doesn't need 10 pounds of sweet feed a day to feel loved.  You wouldn't give your four year old free reign of the candy dish and cookie jar; why load your horse up on sugars and carbs?  Fat is fat, whether horse or human, and a horse is happy just to graze on good quality hay, romp in his pasture, and have the dirt brushed from his itchy places on a regular basis. 

You  may hurt a child's feelings by sending him to his room for a time-out.  You're not going to hurt your horse's feelings because you tie him up and expect him to stand still for grooming and saddling.  I've actually seen people who halter their horse, attach a 12-foot lead rope, let the horse wander as it will, while they "chase" along with brushes, fly spray, and tack.  Now, if you let your horse do as he pleases the entire time you handle him, why should he listen to anything you try to do during a ride?

In the wild, a horse's entire life is based on the structure of a herd.  The herd has an alpha mare, the stallion, and then everything else falls into place.  In your relationship with your horse, for your safety and your horse's well-being, you basically become the "alpha mare" of your horse's world.  You are responsible for his safety, you're responsible for setting the ground rules.  If he does something wrong, it is your job to "punish" him, and then "forgive" him - in the wild, the alpha mare may drive others away from a watering hole first, then allow them to drink after she does.  In your world, you expect your horse to respect your space in much the same way.

It doesn't make your horse love you any less.  And in the end, it makes him respect you more.

It's Grammar Time

You're writing a horse for sale ad.  I understand that spell check is not fail-safe, but it can help.  We're going to have a short (but hopefully helpful) grammar lesson today.

You have a horse for sale.  Or you are selling a horse.  You don't have a horse for sell.  And you're not saleing (yes, I've seen it spelled this way) a horse.  

Your horse has nice conformation; he is well put-together.  You receive a confirmation email from Craigslist to let you know your ad has been posted.

Your horse has been ridden a lot, he is ridden every day.  You rode him yesterday, or it's been a week since you rode.  He hasn't been trail rode; he's been trail ridden.  

Your horse behaves for the farrier.  Not the ferrier or the furrier.  (He may be furrier this time of year, but that's kind of irrelevant).

A hand is 4 inches.  11 hands, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 12 hands.  If your pony is 11.2, you might say he stands 11 and a half hands, or you might just say he's 46 inches.  Your pony isn't 11.5 hands tall.  Nor is your horse 15.6.

My point is not to deride anyone; I'm not poking fun at someone for a single mis-spelling or typo or autocorrect that their eyes may not have caught.  That happens to everyone. 

My point is this - as I've said before - you want to make your horse look the best he can in an advertisement.  That first impression when a buyer is wading through fifty other ads is incredibly important; and if you come across sounding ignorant of the basics -- and ignorant, in general -- why should the buyer have any faith that you know your stuff when it comes to your horse's level of training and his value?

Money versus Responsibility

At some point in time, every horse owner has been a buyer.  For many owners, they've also been a seller. 

Some sellers buy young horses with the intent to train and re-sell.  Some breed to sell.  Some "horse flip," going to the local sale each week, coming home with a trailer load to post on Craigslist, and whatever doesn't sell that week goes back to the sale the following week.  Some sellers have simply outgrown - physically or in terms of discipline or ability - their current animal.  Some sellers genuinely care about the horses they advertise; some don't. 

A seller holds the key to which buyer takes the horse home.  If something just doesn't feel right, if the person is obviously in over their head or not ready for the type of horse the seller is offering - the seller has the right to say so.  The seller can say, I just don't think this is a good match for you, but I'll be happy to help you find a horse that will work for you.  The seller has the right to say, how about if Horse stays here for another 30 days of training which I will discount X amount, and Buyer, you come out every Saturday for a lesson with Horse to make sure this is a good fit.  Sure, it takes a little more time.  But imagine when Buyer tells all her friends what this seller has taken the time to do.  Seller might run out of horses to sell because he took a little responsibility for the animal and the person buying it. 

Sellers, your mama and your preacher were right:  Honesty is the best policy. 

If the horse you're selling requires a joint supplement, special shoes, or 10 minutes of lunging before riding - this information is critical to ensuring the horse a long-term home, rather than bouncing place to place until ending up neglected, unsound, ruined, dumped at the sale.  The right buyer will not walk away because of an issue they are told about up front.

Seriously, if you have put any kind of time into training the horse, how does it make any sense to send your substantial investment off with someone who will undo all your hard work?  Because they've handed you a check?  Really?  How do you take any pride in your work if you're willing to send a colt with 60 days training off to a beginner owner/rider who isn't equipped to be in this situation but trusts that you know best because you're far more experienced? 
Remember that "unwanted horses" were once wanted; starving and neglected horses picked up by rescues may have once been someone else's favorite show prospect or their little girl's pet.  If the horse market is to regain some level of value; if the number of "unwanted horses" is to be reduced - each and every seller out there needs to step up and take a little bit of responsibility for the horses they are putting into the marketplace.

Will trade horses for..........common sense???

Unfortunately, ads like this one are not all that uncommon.  This particular ad came from the Evansville, IN Craigslist.  The "don't have room to keep them all" followed by "this mare is bred, this mare is bred, this mare is bred" defines all common sense. 

If you don't have room to keep them, why are you breeding the ones you have?  What did you think would happen when you breed stallion to mare?  Instead of 2 horses, you then have 3.  When you breed multiple mares, multiple foals result. 

If you don't have the room for the mares you have, plus the babies they'll be birthing in the spring, why do you want to trade them for another mare?  Please tell me it's not to breed them, too.

I don't understand how or why anyone thinks that a bred mare is going to be more valuable than a nicely trained trail mare in this economy, with the value of an average horse with average bloodlines and not trained in a particular discipline being next to nothing compared to five years ago.  If anything, it decreases a mare's value because most people want to buy a horse to ride right now, not fool with the birthing process, weaning a foal, deciding whether to keep or sell one or the other.  People may not have the facilities for a bred mare, or to separate and wean colt from mare, or to pay board on two horses instead of one - so you immediately exclude a large group of horse shoppers from taking a second glance at your mare, regardless of how nice she may be.  And especially not when someone who does want to raise a foal can find a weanling for under $1000, and many worthwhile projects under $500, without having to worry about late-term bred-mare care, foaling, and weaning. 

I'm not picking on this particular poster, either...I see it all the time.  I would bet there is a similar post on at least 50% of the Craigslists nationwide.