11/23/2025
Today’s rant is about horse traders, trainers, and sellers
Because too many people are getting hurt, and too many good horses are ending up in the wrong homes. And that is exactly how they end up at slaughter.
This year alone, I’ve had several friends and hoof-trimming clients hurt or HOSPITALIZED, yes, hospitalized!
Because they were sold horses that were not honestly represented, not properly evaluated, and absolutely not suitable for their skill level. This isn’t drama. This is the cost of people doing a poor job and calling it “horsemanship.”
In the past, I made my living buying horses at the sale barn, evaluating them honestly, fixing holes in their training, and placing them in homes where they would truly thrive.
And when I say I evaluated them, I mean I evaluated everything:
• temperament
• behavior under pressure
• holes and issues
• reactions to fear
• forgiveness level
• herd behavior
• ability to handle human mistakes
• tolerance for chaos
• real-world safety
And then I evaluated the person buying them just as honestly, their confidence, timing, lifestyle, temperament… all of it.
And many times, I said:
“This horse is NOT for you.”
Not because the horse was bad.
Not because the person was bad.
But because mismatching them is how people get hurt, and how good horses get ruined.
And let me be honest about something else:
Were all of the horses I sold fully trained or “super well broke”?
No. They weren’t.
Some were green.
Some had holes.
Some had quirks.
Some needed miles.
Some needed confidence.
Some needed help in areas I didn’t get to finish yet.
But here’s the difference:
I was honest about every single one of those things.
I told buyers exactly what I had done with the horse, exactly what the horse already knew, exactly where the gaps were, and exactly what situations that horse was, and was NOT appropriate for. Then I placed them accordingly.
I didn’t lie.
I didn’t sugarcoat.
I didn’t hope the buyer “wouldn’t notice.”
I didn’t sell a green horse as “broke.”
I didn’t sell a reactive horse as “kid safe.”
Honesty placed those horses in the right homes, the homes where they could succeed.
That’s the difference between ethical horse selling and what we’re seeing today.
Horses today are being sold without even the most basic evaluations, and we fail when we don’t properly evaluate the horses we are selling.
Because here’s what most people don’t understand:
Experienced horsemen compensate for things novices and weekend warriors can’t.
We adjust instantly.
We see the early signs before the trigger is ever pulled.
We catch problems before they become dangerous.
We soften mistakes unconsciously.
But a novice or pleasure rider does NOT have that timing or instinct, and the things that don’t bother us will absolutely be a problem for someone less experienced.
That’s how people end up in the hospital.
Let’s talk about one of the biggest holes I see in foundations: standing tied.
A horse that can’t stand still and relax when tied, truly tied, no hay bag, no distraction, is a horse that is not comfortable in its own skin. And that is a HUGE problem.
I mean stand tied and wait quietly:
• No pawing
• No dancing
• No melting down after five minutes
• Just existing peacefully and resting
This is a SKILL.
Not shutdown.
Not checked-out.
Not a horse that has “given up.”
A relaxed, thinking horse that can stand tied with nothing to do is a horse with emotional maturity.
A horse that can regulate.
A horse that can handle pressure.
A horse that can handle a novice’s mistakes.
If a horse cannot regulate while standing still, it absolutely will not regulate under saddle.
The daily basics translate directly to the saddle.
A horse that can’t stand tied won’t stand still to mount.
A horse that crowds you on the ground will crowd other horses you ride with.
A horse that panics when saddled will panic when a stick brushes them or something gets caught on them.
A horse that ignores your space on the lead rope will ignore your rein cues.
A horse that can’t tolerate being “handled badly” is not safe for a novice, a pleasure rider, or a weekend warrior.
Herd behavior around humans another MASSIVE gap.
You cannot sell a horse to a novice without testing how it behaves in a herd when a human is in the middle of it.
I can walk out with a grain bucket and hand-feed my entire herd with zero:
• kicking
• squealing
• pinning ears
• running others off
• pushing into me
• treating me like part of their hierarchy
Because my horses know that this behavior is NEVER tolerated around a human.
A horse that runs others over the top of a person is dangerous.
A horse that treats humans like herd members is dangerous.
A horse that forgets humans are soft, squishy, and breakable is dangerous.
And novices, bless them, don’t know how to correct that safely.
So the horse must already know it. We have to teach it. Very few ever do.
So what does a truly novice-safe horse LOOK like?
Not “quiet.”
Not “sweet.”
Not “good on the trail.”
A truly novice-safe horse is bombproof in the ways that MATTER.
It looks like 20 ponies, covered in costumes, glitter, streamers, bells…horns honking!
ridden by 20 children in a parade,
kids bouncing, yelling, leaning, losing reins, dropping stirrups, and being exactly what kids are.
And those ponies walk through town like it’s nothing.
That’s what you get when you properly evaluate horses.
One of my mentors taught me how to evaluate horses to that level and every year, we put 20 to 30 kids on ponies in the Mancos Day Parade.
Not once,not once! Did we have a wreck.!
Because those horses were evaluated, exposed, proofed, and prepared to handle real novices.
That is what “novice-safe” actually means.
This is where trainers must step up.
If you skip the basics just to get riding footage, you are part of the problem.
A horse that looks good under saddle but can’t handle daily life is not trained.
It is unfinished.
And it is unsafe.
Full stop:
we are failing as horsemen when it comes to novices and weekend warriors.
If we want these riders to stay safe, and stay in the equine world, then we need to do better.
Teach the basics with pride,
even the simple stuff like leading, going through gates, and herd behavior.
Prepare horses for the humans they’re going home with.
Match horses to people honestly.
Support novice riders and help them grow.
Because when we fail the foundation, we fail the rider.
And when we fail the rider, the horse pays the price.
Good horses deserve better.
Good people deserve better.
And the future of horsemanship depends on us doing better, every single day, in the small, unglamorous, essential tasks that create safe horses and safe humans who WANT to participate in the equine world.
