which is a silly fucking statement to make because i made it several weeks ago, but somehow i got talked in to doing it by sammi…
Buying horses is a tortuous process at the best of times, but we have (‘we’ being horse-buyers) the potential within us to make it a thousandfold worse than the painful, heartbreaking hell that it already is.
How do we do this?
We travel.
‘I am not travelling hundreds of miles to see a bunch of prospects who won’t measure up when I get to their stables,’ I said, some weeks ago.
‘I’ve done that and had my heart broken a thousand times, I’m not doing it again,’ I continued.
Should have stuck to my guns.
Today I drove a four hundred mile round-trip to look at two horses.
Both lovely chaps; enticingly worded in the adverts and yes, I should have STUCK TO MY FUCKING GUNS.
But no, Sammi applied pressure because she has the female shopping gene except in her genetic makeup her shopping gene is larger than my house.
So I went.
Horse 1, the dark bay warmblood; was an absolute poppet, a real sweetie. But it all adds up, when one arrives on the scene and is able to query the vendor in some detail.
Yes, it all adds up, the ligament operation, the box rest, the stopping on the cross country course, the virus, and is that two sarcoids I can see tucked away low on his chest?
None of these things, I should emphasise, is his fault. But with that many questions one just doesn’t proceed so I was straight with them and left the poor owner probably feeling like shit, though I did my best to make her see it wasn’t his fault.
Horse 2, the registered Irish Sport Horse, had a very fetching air about him. He was huge, slightly larger than the 17-hands he’d been advertised at but quite fine in a TBx kind of way. Clean-limbed, good-footed, gentle, willing; straight-moving through his back, and very well-balanced on the concrete, he did a lovely couple of trot-ups.
The owner tacked him up while I changed in to suitable clothes and I watched her work in. After 10 minutes I sat on.
Twenty minutes later I dismounted, gently told her why I wasn’t going to be proceeding, got in the car and began the painfully long drive home from darkest Lincolnshire.
Part-way back, the girl at the yard who had borrowed my lorry called to say she’d had a lovely day, thanked me warmly and then said that she couldn’t restart it to put it back in its bay.
From the description it sounds like a stuck starter motor.
By the time I got back to our Oxfordshire hideaway it was after 22.00.
So much for an early night on a Sunday.
But I’ll tell you one thing my friends.
I am not doing that again.
Travelling hundreds of miles to see horses?
No way, I’m done with that.
So we can look forward to your next report on the horses you went to see in Aberdeen or Caerphilly then?
You will do it again!
I got my horse from Lincolnshire. We saw three horses that weekend, and I hated calling the two we decided not to get and telling them I wouldn’t be buying. They answered the phone and when they heard it was me, their voices were all expectant. I think they thought I just wouldn’t make any further contact if I wasn’t interested. But I thanked them for taking the time to show me them etc.
I feel your pain Bren, I do the same with race cars.
Will you keep Vin if (when) you get another horse?
Vicola: You’re mean and nasty and horrid and… I’m going to WSM to look at one tomorrow. 🙂
Jo: The heartbreaking thing of the second horse was that the vendor has ruined it. With time and effort it could be made right but that’s not where I’m at.
Sir Perp: Indeed, the Vinster is safe. Because punishment and gluttony are my watchwords. But I guess vendors of all things like them to be what the buyers want them to be?