A different view

A new view between the ears is occurring. Even tho this is being written March 3rd, these thoughts occurred at the beginning of February...

It's been a while since I posted about selling the horses. I thought about that for a long time and I gave myself until February to come up with some direction. In the months between November and February I took lots of pictures and videos intending to use them to sell the horses on line. I had talked to many friends, coworkers, farriers, trainers, anyone who would listen about selling the horses. My dressage teacher helped me come up with prices and wording to help sell them. A friend told me about videos to help sell them because words backed up with videos goes a long way to sell a horse. I knew I would give a new owner a really good deal if it was a good home for them. I really wanted to try to find them a home where they could stay together, but I was willing to sell them separately if that turned out to be the best situation for each of them.

Two things stood out that helped me to make up my mind. One was that Skippy is a hard horse to sell. She is 20 years old and is slightly off on the left front. In January I had the vet out and we took X-rays of the left front. Turns out there is no ringbone or sidetone, just some slight arthritis on the front of her pasture bone where it connects to the cannon bone. Also some navicular changes that would be expected of a 20 year old horse-no navicular disease tho. Phew, that was a relief-now I had some information to give a future buyer. But all of that doesn't change the way she moves or her age. And the second thing was my desire that they stay together. It would be hard to find a home for both of the horses. So those things lead me to make the decision at the beginning of February to donate the horses to my riding stable to be used for lesson horses.

They would stay together and both of them would be used. The lesson program at my barn used to be very busy. The horses in the lesson string had a hard job but now the lesson program is much slower. Life as a lesson horse would not be as hard as it used to be and probably will never be that busy ever again. So life as a lesson horse would not be a hard life. The barn manager was happy to take them. She said they could still live together and she would keep their farriers. She currently has 2 lesson horses and only one is really usable, and she takes better care of them than she used to in the past.  In exchange I would still be able to ride them as long as they were not being used for a lesson. My work load at the barn would be reduced as I didn't have to work off any board.  So now there are 3 lesson horses and I won't have to work so hard.

It will be interesting to see how this all works out. Details to follow.