03/12/2025
This is the gods honest truth of horses
Today we're going to talk about why it's so hard to find the right horse these days. This is something I hear people complain about 24/7. I see the ads ALL the time with a laundry list of "requirements" I know perfectly well they are not going to find in a living, breathing horse.
See, the average horse starts life over on the left side of this graph. He's totally sound in almost every case! But he's also wild as a March hare. Foals will kick you, bite you, etc. Young horses who have recently been trained to ride can be fairly unpredictable. It's not at all unusual for them to spook, buck, or bolt, thus disqualifying them from consideration by the folks that post the "NO spook/buck/bolt" ads.
As horses get older, if they are consistently ridden, competed with, etc., they tend to get progressively safer. But much like your car when you go over 100k, stuff starts breaking down, too. That horse will now need some maintenance to keep doing his job. Joint supplements, Adequan/Legend whatever, corrective shoeing or lifestyle changes like pasture instead of a stall will be required to keep him working.
The problem is, too often, the ads that say "NO spook/buck/bolt" also often say "100% sound/no maintenance required." Folks, those two things are almost never in the same bucket.
So if you actually want a horse to ride, you are probably going to have to compromise somewhere. I would say that beginners should buy at the blue heart point, your average reasonably competent rider should buy at the red heart point, and if you want to do something competitive that's hard on them (barrel racing, polo, endurance, jumping, higher levels of dressage, etc.) you are going to have to shop in the green heart range and learn to stick when that young, sound horse does some silly young, sound horse stuff.
There are no other alternatives. Now, stop posting silly ISO ads and buy or adopt a horse at the point in the graph where you know you belong.
