VCBH: Interested Parties

So way back in week seven of this tortuously long blog hop I have going we talked about the Pros of our current horse. Some of us experienced these pros after buying our horse. Now I am curious, what made you interested in your current horse that lead you to buying them in the first place?

This is a really interesting idea for a blog hop topic! 

I always end up with horses based on some weird turn of events. I've never had a "normal" horse shopping experience where I tried multiple horses, had a checklist, budget, PPE etc. and Katai was no different. I'd had a couple of tough decisions to make about horses such as the decisions after Sora hurt herself and deciding that Myshla was just too small. I'd decided after having Myshla that I wanted a pony and since I still owned Myshla and didn't really want a second horse I was only casually looking. I was looking through Horse Clicks and stumbled over an ad with this picture. 

The ad listed a 13.1 hand pony for sale at $400. It stated that she was untrained and half Haflinger. She also just happened to be about half an hour north of where I was living at the time. I held out. I KNEW that I didn't need another horse, I really didn't want to start and train another myself after dealing with Sora's issues and I really wanted a pony that was closer to 14 hands.

A few months later as I was getting more convinced I could handle having two horses and was also pretty sure I was going to find a little girl home for Myshla I decided to start looking more seriously. I wasn't having much luck with the searches I was doing so I lowered the height I was looking for and there she was again. At that point I had nothing to lose by going to see her and I was pretty sure that since it was going into winter, late September, and she had been listed for a few months that her owner may be willing to take a deal.

I went to see her and I wouldn't say I was blown away but she was what I was looking for. She was reasonably calm and despite having not been handled much, or correctly, she picked things up pretty quick. I asked for her to yield her shoulder and she thought quietly about it and although she resisted a little she figured it out without a blow up. I could do almost nothing other than lead her so I played around with groundwork as much as I could. It was her mind and her Haflinger heritage that actually sold her. 

That and the fact that her teenager owner accepted a trade of a whole bunch of extra, horse sized English tack for her instead of cash :)

After her purchase I struggled with several things including intermittent lameness, rearing, lack of any ground manners, two 4+ hour trailer loading experiences, and much worse/tighter/shorter gaits than I hoped she'd have.

 The lameness turned out to be thrush which is now completely gone, the training issues went away with, guess what, training and time, and her gaits have improved immensely now that her feet feel better and she's got some strength. She went from a fairly naughty, headstrong pony with attitude to one of the quietest, bravest, calmest, smartest equines that I've ever had the pleasure to work with. She also grew around an inch and is now 13.2 1/2 - 13.3 hands

My plan was, and has always been, that I COULD train her for a little kid. Get a good return on investment and buy myself something else but honestly, this pony has stolen my heart. I'd hoped from the beginning that I'd keep her and earlier this week I had a whole post typed up about how I know she is my heart horse and how I plan on doing just that but then it disapeared. She has made riding fun for me again after a few bad or scary experiences. I no longer want to go to the barn because I love horses or know I need to train her or myself, now I'm going because I want to ride HER, spend time with HER. 

I need to get new pictures since she is really developing a top line and has filled out a lot since even the most recent photos I've posted. I'll try to post an update after my lesson on Thursday!