Of course this is obviously an older horse, but the prominent backbone and croup are all very similar to this gelding above, although I think his ribs were standing out MORE then this horses. Definitely around a 2 on the body conditioning scale. Their excuse? "He's a big horse, he takes a lot of feed!" and "He was like that when we got him" Sigh.
SAD. I knew when we drove up to a ranshackle barn and a rundown dressage arena with BARREL RACING barrels in it that was a bad sign. Not to mention the 2 horses walking around loose with lead ropes dangling. Near a road. Yeah. -_-
So I saw him in the pasture when we drove up and I thought oh no, I really hope that's not him. I looked closer at his markings and I knew it, I knew it was him. He has the same markings as Daisy so it wasn't hard to remember. My mother in law went OH NO, I hope not! I was like, well, maybe not, but I have a strong suspicion!
The lady that ran this 'lesson barn' was sick so she had her teenage students tacking up and talking to us. We walked out to the pasture to catch him and he wasn't happy about that, trotted around a bit before we got him. Then as the little girl was haltering him I asked her some about him, namely about him being out of Impressive blood and if he had been tested. She says, I don't know, but I do know he is a roarer. WHAT?! Your kidding right?? NO MENTION of this in his ad of course. That right there was kind of a deal breaker. But we had drove over an hour to get there and decided to try him out anyway.
So we get to the barn and they can't find any tack to fit him (most of their horses were under 15 hands and he is 16.2). She also can't find a saddle that my father in law can fit in. They finally find reins that are long enough and the girl takes him to the little dressage arena and puts him through his paces both ways. Oh wait, I forgot the part where she said he throws his head a bit so lets try him in a tie down. YEAH. So she puts one of those on him and my father in law are just looking at each other like, man what a waste of time.
Anyway he does fairly decent. Takes his leads well, etc. I notice she is posting his trot, but don't think much about it until later. And then we hear it about the second time around at the lope, HUFF HUFF HUFF with each stride. Yep, definitely a roarer.
She hops off and I tell her I don't want to ride him in the tie down and take it off so I can see how he does, then climb up on the behemoth. I flex him both ways, he does that fairly well. I make him woah a couple times and flex again. He pulls HARD on the bit a few times, can definitely tell he has had beginners yanking on him. Then I trot him. OH MY WORD. Now I know why she was posting his trot. I could. not. keep. my. hiney. in. the. saddle. Awful! And his lope wasn't much better. So I did lope him pretty good both directions and you could hear his roar even worse, poor guy. So! That was the end of that.
We were all pretty disappointed so I got on my phone again to see if there was anything else down there worth looking at. Found a stable about 25 minutes east of us who had two geldings that sounded promising. But they didn't pan out either. At least they were saddled when we drove up! The father in law jumped on a sorrel and I took the palomino paint. Neither looked like much. They were about 15.1ish, but pretty lanky. Just 'horses', you know? They minded well though and were a nice ride. Definitely smoother then old Red Man. But still not what he was looking for!
As we were driving home I happened to get an email from a guy who had a pleasure gelding that the FIL relaly like, but had said he thought someone was coming to get him. He said in his email he still had him and to give him a call. Whoo hoo! We were pretty excited about that, so maybe he will work out. We'll see!
I used to think horse shopping was fun, but LAWD, I'm having second thoughts.
Got another post in the works! Might get it out today!
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