On the Road Again

It's been quite the horsy weekend so far!  I had a Friday off of work, so I went with my Sweetie to check out several prospects down in the Houston area.  First up was a cute little Strawberry Roan Mare down in Sugarland.   Zhizhu and I were a bit uncertain about this mare going in, because a day before, we received a call from one of the other trainers whose horses we were due to look at that day saying that the mare in Sugarland's owner had called her asking her if she could come and fix some of the mare's problems.  

..Problems!?

According to the trainer who called us, the mare had reared when the girl first got her, and at the right lead canter would turn and go to the center of the arena, completely blowing off her rider.  After hearing this, Zhizhu and I almost called and canceled our appointment to see the mare, but after talking to Zhizhu's trainer and Saga's mom, we decided to go ahead and keep the appointment. The ad had her as 15.2hh, but she was maybe 14.2. That was a bit shorter than Zhizhu would have preferred, but not necessarily a deal breaker. I was going to look pretty silly on her, but she'd suit Zhizhu's height ok. After grooming her, and picking out her feet, Zhizhu and the seller went and took her into the round pen to see her move, since the seller had apparently rolled her ankle and wasn't in condition to ride. I never like it when I go to look at a horse and there's no one there to ride it before I hop on, so I usually ask if I can watch the horse move in the round pen. It won't necessarily let me know if the horse is going to be a complete lunatic under saddle, but it will tell me if they're a complete lunatic. At least, that's the theory. At any rate, while Zhizhu watched the mare in the round pen, I switched out my saddle's gullet to fit the mare. Almost on cue, as soon as I was done with the gullet Zhi was walking back to me. Reading her body language, I determined that nothing crazy had happened in the round pen, so we saddled the mare up.

Out of force of habit, we asked if there was a mounting block we could use, before I realized that I could quite easily mount from the ground. I hopped up in the saddle and off we went. Since she was so short, her movement was drastically different than what I was used to. I really don't know how to qualify it other than that she just felt weird. She really didn't listen to seat commands and tried to rush at the trot. She also didn't understand how to round, which I found kind of strange, considering she came from a Hunter background. Of course, it's possible the hunters use different cues than I'm used to. Sort of as a last ditch effort, I shortened my stirrups to jumping length, and trotted and cantered her in two-point. Once I went up into two point, she seemed to go, "Oh! I know what we're doing now!", and listened a bit better. I didn't have any of the problems with her that the seller had mentioned to the trainer, and decided that she was just fine for Zhi to try out.

As I'd sort of expected Zhi didn't like her much. She wasn't really a bad mare but, neither Zhi nor I clicked with her. So, it was onto the next batch. The next batch was a pair of ex-racehorses. One of which was grey, the other was a bay. In the videos we saw, the grey looked nice and quiet, and the bay looked a little hot. As it turns out, the truth was the complete opposite. Not that I'd necessarily call the bay quiet per se... I'd consider him to be more responsive. He took really really light cues and he stumbled and bucked with me. The buck wasn't a "get off me.", it was him spooking from me coming unbalanced. Zhi really liked the bay, and if I'm honest, I did rather like him to, but I'm seriously concerned about my wife having a horse that sensitive. Let me be clear though, it's not that I doubt Zhi's capabilities, its just that although the horse is 9, he really doesn't have much life experiences. I let Zhi up on the bay, and I'll admit that he took good care of her. He acted like a totally different horse while she was riding him. Which is certainly very positive, and indicative of a good mind, but I think at this point, before making the decision to buy this horse, I want to take along somebody with more experience to ride him and tell us what they think, because I feel like this horse falls into a gray area that at my current level of experience, it would be unwise of me to make a decision.

Last up was yet another ex-racehorse that Zhi's trainer passed on. To cut a long story short, this guy was what most people think when they hear "ex racehorse". He was hotter than the sun, and spooky as all get out. I rode him all of 5 minutes before deciding there was no way in hell I was letting Zhi up on him. Hell, Zhi didn't even want me to get up on him. In the future, I'll listen when she says that. Now, before y'all get up in arm's, Zhi's trainer hadn't gone out to see the horse yet, she had simply seen the ad and talked to the seller over the phone, and the horse sounded good on the phone. I can't really fault her for that, I lost count of all the horses I went to look at that sounded great on the phone, but were a totally different story in person. Tune in next week, where the search will continue! :)