09/27/2025
I can share this enough. We live in a society where people forgot how much fun the process can be. How rewarding the journey and how it mean so much more when you start them your self and shape the horse. I never forgot that part and when I get a newly retire OTTB in. I am just as excited as Christmas morning.
What’s happen to all of our riders who use to just get a horse and shape it into what they want ⁉️
You saw an advert for a horse you liked the look of, it was green, it lacked direction but showed a bit of ability for what you wanted, you snapped it up off a small amount of footage and you turned it into a horse you wanted to keep or sold it to its next rider with a bit more mileage under its belt and a good polish up. If it didn’t end up being quite what you thought you were getting you just made it work anyway, got help from someone or cut your losses and moved on and that was just a risk you took when buying a horse at any stage of training!
The green ones didn’t get tried multiple times before you made your mind up, heck you hardly even tried them half the time, even the amateurs would pick up something green but genuine looking and just make it work. Selling horses use to be easy.
Now they need multiple viewings just to decide that the green horse is surprisingly just that… green. It can have a fault that is completely manageable but you can’t move it for a fraction of what it’s worth because surely the perfect unicorn is out there instead. It has a blemish on its show record that’s easily explained but everyone on this half of the world has heard through the grapevine that it did this thing that one time. Or worst of all it has something on a vet check that isn’t 100% and then it’s just worthless even though it’s been performing just fine for years.
I know things are expensive, I know the world of social media has made every flaw so easy to find and I know plenty of people just don’t really want to take a risk anymore but how many good horses are getting passed over because people won’t just take a chance these days.
If your the one selling you best be prepared to take back any horse you sell, gone are the days of responsibility stopping when the money is in the bank. You better be prepared to back your horse til the bitter end because it can and it will come back to bite you if you aren’t. Be ready for endless viewings, heart breaking vet checks and questionable sanity levels left just days into marketing your horse. If you have a diamond in the rough maybe now instead of someone else getting the chance to polish it you’ll just have to do it yourself because selling the perfect horse is becoming hard enough let alone one that needs an opportunity!
Let’s not forget how many of us people aren’t perfect but are perfectly useful at many things. Let’s stop looking for unicorns and just go back to taking a chance. Things were definitely much easier then…
📸 Pictured the incredibly special Emilio MSH who was purchased at 10yrs old sight unseen off an advert that would make most sane people run a mile. I even paid 6k for him. He bucked so badly he’d not done much with his life up til that stage, he’d never been to a show and he came with plenty of warnings that I should expect to eat dirt frequently. He was terribly put together, would never pass a vet check, he had a wild tribal Indian way of going and he was never the most conventional of horses yet I’ve never met a horse with a bigger heart. He won more ribbons than I could ever count, took me places Show Jumping I could only dream of and was the most perfect imperfect horse I’ve ever owned. Did he take managing. YES. Was having him on the team plain sailing. NO. But did he teach me so much as a rider and give me the ride of a life time. ABSOLUTELY. He’s now happily retired in my paddocks but remember in your search for perfect you might just miss out on a horse like him.
