Tack Box Talk
Tack Box Talk
Horse Shopping: The story of taking your time to find your perfect fit
In this episode, recent horse shoppers Robyn Stewart from the University of Georgia Extension, and Dr. Kathy Anderson with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, share how they found their new equine partner. From savvy shopping to kicking some tires (or hooves), the key to finding a new horse - don't be in a rush!
Caveat Emptor – Let the buyer beware: How to Avoid Mistakes When Buying a Horse
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Kris Hiney: Welcome to Extension Horses Tack Box Talk series, Horse Stories with a Purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney with Oklahoma State University, and today we're going to be talking about buying a horse and all of the trepidations, nervous feelings, trying to vet them out, with two experts at buying horses, or at least some that have recently endeavored on the task. So, Robin Stewart from University of Georgia.
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Kris Hiney: Extension, so welcome, Robin.
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Robyn Stewart: Hello, how's it going?
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Kris Hiney: Good, and Dr. Kathy Anderson from the University of Nebraska. Welcome, Kathy.
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Kathy Anderson: Amen, glad to be here.
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Kris Hiney: So, it's always an exciting time, right, if you're actually thinking about adding a horse, to your barn. It's not like barn cats that just show up, right? So, hopefully there's a bit more thought and purpose that goes into buying a horse. So, maybe I'm going to start with a question even before the process.
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Kris Hiney: How would you know you're even ready?
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Kris Hiney: Or need a new horse?
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Kathy Anderson: I can start, I mean, because I kind of went through this just because,
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Kathy Anderson: I had a horse that I'd been showing for some time, and it was just time to sell her. You know, it was kind of the deal. I either needed to keep her forever, or time to go and sell her, and so I went through that.
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Kathy Anderson: I mean, and sometimes it just depends on your situation, if, you know, you just have a desire to get a different horse, or, for example, when we had our kids, we're showing a lot, they just needed to upgrade, get something different, and so, you know, there's a lot of different things, and some of it is just you kind of figuring out. How about you, Robin?
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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, so I… I generally think in two different directions on this. I think about kind of the riding end of it, and then the management end, and I think in terms of somebody who has not owned a horse before, so maybe this is like a buying a first horse, and on the riding front, I think it's kind of the standard of
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Robyn Stewart: what are you trying to do? How experienced are you? Are you going to have this horse somewhere with, like, training and lessons, or are you just going to bring it home and free for all it? But I also think something that I wish people had talked to me about, because I had taken lessons my whole life, and I had leased and done all of the things before I bought my horse.
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Robyn Stewart: And I really was not prepared for, like, the time commitment, even with a boarded horse, and the amount of guilt I felt when I didn't get out to see him as much as I thought I would, right? So I think on the management end, it's thinking about, kind of, the financial and time commitments with having horses in general. But in terms of when it's appropriate to buy, we bought about 5 weeks ago, I looked up the date.
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Robyn Stewart: For my boyfriend, actually, so he wanted to get a horse and be able to ride with me and trail ride and kind of have something to learn on. And he had been riding mine, kind of, for the better part of the last year, and he just decided that he was committed to buying a horse. So, I think, as you said, sometimes that's how you make the decision, is just kind of being interested and ready.
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Kris Hiney: So you made an interesting comment there, Robin, in, thinking about first-time horse owners. You said that, you know, there's the cost of the horse, and then the cost of ownership of the horse. Do you guys have a good estimate of what
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Kris Hiney: Someone should kind of be budgeting for a yearly allocation to own a horse.
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Kathy Anderson: I think a person really needs… a lot of it's going to depend on various factors, and partially the area of the country that you're in. And so, somebody really needs to go through and do,
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Kathy Anderson: kind of do some investigation and find out what it is for their area. And do they just… and there's a lot of different kinds of boarding.
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Kathy Anderson: So you can have a pasture board. Here in Lincoln, Nebraska, we have a lot of some barns that do what they call self-care, so it's relatively inexpensive to board your horse there, but you're responsible for all of your own feed, getting out there twice a day to feed it, you know, and those kinds of things. So, like Robin had said, you've really got to think about the time commitment.
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Kathy Anderson: You can look online, I mean, and find different kind of areas of what it might cost.
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Kathy Anderson: But not only is it the day-to-day boarding and feeding and that, then it's the other healthcare kinds of things, you know, do they need shoes or don't? Because that's an added expense. They'll order the healthcare types of things for your vaccinations and your worming, and so…
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Kathy Anderson: I think a new person needs to visit with some other folks in the area, and then make a list of what these expenses are in your particular area, because I know what it costs here in Lincoln, Nebraska is quite a bit different than Texas, and it's way different when you find it on the East Coast. It can be tremend… very tremendously.
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Robyn Stewart: Absolutely, and I agree with that. I think the regional differences are massive, and I think there's a lot of difference, too, in terms of what your goals are, because somebody who's in a training or a lesson program has wildly different costs than somebody who isn't. Speaking for Georgia and where I am, on the low end of expenses.
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Robyn Stewart: I estimate that I was spending about 3 to 5 grand a year on equine-related things, and that was very low, quite frankly. On the flip side, I'll give this year has been a great example. My horse lost an eye this year. I had about 10 grand in vet bills this year. And then on top of that, we had some management changes. I'm probably sitting closer to 15 or 20 grand this year in horse expenses, so
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Robyn Stewart: I think it just entirely depends on the circumstances and where you live and what you're doing, and my horse is kind of semi-retired, fun. We don't train, we don't show, we don't do anything like that. This is just kind of a pasture pet that gets ridden a couple times a week, so…
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Robyn Stewart: I think regional variability matters, but I think you can spend as much as you want, I would also say. That number just goes up. So, baseline, you know…
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Kris Hiney: And I think you made a good point there, and yes, we'll talk about buying horses eventually, but, like, how much a swing can happen in a year if you hit, you know, one of those years with big healthcare costs, and…
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Kris Hiney: You either have to have budgeted, like, having… holding back that savings account for…
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Kris Hiney: horse care, horse insurance might be an option for you, but the ability to absorb, like, those catastrophic things, I think, are super, super important for people to think about.
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Robyn Stewart: Absolutely. And I tell people I had the easiest horse for 10 years.
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Robyn Stewart: I've had him about 10 years, and he has been easy as can be, and this year we have had the eye issue, we had a whole bunch of hind lameness issues, we've had all kinds of injections… anyway, it's been never-ending on the vet bill front this year, so you will get a year that will be a doozy, and you'll be very glad you have been saving your pennies to be able to afford all of the pieces to your horse that you need.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, no, I think that's… that's important. Okay, so let's say people have done their homework, found a system in their area that will work for them and is at a price point that works for their budget, so everybody needs to be realistic about this.
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Kris Hiney: Now you're gonna go start looking. Where do you start?
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Kathy Anderson: I think in today's market, there's a lot of, word of mouth.
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Kathy Anderson: You can find some things on social media, there's different groups. I think it's really important that if you're a novice person, if this is maybe your first horse person, you find a trusted person that can help you.
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Kathy Anderson: I think that's really important because you don't know the questions to ask.
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Kathy Anderson: I remember a long time ago, I took my daycare lady, and she wanted a horse, and we found a pal. I mean, oh, he's beautiful! I says, yeah, he's pretty, but all they've ever done is ride this horse in a round pen. So, hello. You know, so, you need to be careful, you need to have somebody that does have experience to help you find what is the best horse for you at that point.
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Kathy Anderson: In, in your,
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Kathy Anderson: You know, in your horse career, because it can change over time, but you need to be…
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Kathy Anderson: it needs to be a… sometimes the most important horse you buy is that first one, because if you get a good one and things go good, then you'll stay, and you'll keep maybe upgrading and this and that. If you have a terrible experience, it's not gonna… you're not gonna hang around, and it's gonna get kind of expensive, and it's gonna sour you. And so, like, I tell folks, you know, find somebody that you can trust,
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Kathy Anderson: You know, I've heard people buy a horse off the internet. To me, that's super dangerous. You need to be in a position where you can go look at him and that.
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Kathy Anderson: A lot of times, you know, horses that are not so far away, that's very doable. If you get into the market of high-end show horses, sometimes that's a little bit different. But for the average person that's just starting out, you know, find somebody
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Kathy Anderson: Word of mouth is always a big thing. It used to be, eons ago, we'd have the Sunday newspaper, and you'd look in the Juan ads and go look at them there. Well, that doesn't really exist anymore, and there's different websites you can look at.
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Kathy Anderson: And kind of do some initial shopping there. But that, to me, is just a first thing that you might kind of narrow some horses down, and then try to figure out, has anybody looked at this horse? Can I go see him? Some of those different kinds of things. Yep.
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Kris Hiney: So who would you say, and maybe I, you know, been in the business too long, but who would you say is a trusted person? Because there's also, like, there's a lot of people that have bad experiences with buying horses, because there's some…
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Kris Hiney: Shenanigans, that may occur, so…
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Kathy Anderson: So, go ahead, Robin. You've done this the most recent of any.
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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, we used a variety of sources, and we looked longer than I thought we would, because we were really looking for a true beginner-safe.
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Robyn Stewart: very kind temperament, bigger, stockier horse to carry my boyfriend. We did not care if it was fancy, we did not care how old it was, we didn't care what color it was, we just wanted safe, sound, and gentle. That was our biggest priority. And we looked, probably, for
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Robyn Stewart: 3 or 4 months, to find something that we thought was appropriate. And we looked at a couple that were pretty gnarly.
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Robyn Stewart: personal connection-wise, trusted people. I went through some colleagues of mine, and again, I think we're all kind of in a unique position being county agents and people involved in the equine industry, because we have friends and connections to people who, you know, have horses, work with other people who have horses. So,
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Robyn Stewart: For me, it was finding people who were communicative and who were willing to answer the questions that we had right off the bat, and gave, like, honest answers. You know, if it looks or sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
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Robyn Stewart: Especially in horses, and we had a couple of things like that where we would be looking on some of the social media pages, and we actually did find our horse on social media, through somebody that we did not know, we had no connection to, but we were able to go look at him, they sent us a bunch of videos, we did go ride him.
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Robyn Stewart: Trialed him, and he worked out for us. But, we do have some pages that, you know, they've got 50 horses, and every single one is beginner safe and sound.
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Robyn Stewart: And we just know that that is not going to be accurate. So I think some of it is recognizing if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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Robyn Stewart: If you go to look at a horse and, you know, you look at a horse and it doesn't look to be quite the right fit, and they're like, well, we got 5 more we can show you, that typically, to me, is not always the best place either, because to me, that typically shows that it's somebody who's really trying to move or deal horses a little bit more actively, and I do think that in those cases, especially if they won't allow a PPE or a trial.
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Robyn Stewart: those are circumstances where I think you can get into trouble pretty quick. But, this willingness to answer questions, willingness to allow pre-purchase exams and trials, things like that, I think is really valuable. And even if it's somebody that maybe is not a personal connection, somebody who's willing to kind of do those things, I think is probably going to be a little bit more reputable than somebody who is not willing to do those things and also not willing to answer questions or
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Robyn Stewart: Kind of have the conversation that needs to be had.
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Kathy Anderson: I think a good thing that she brought out is that you gotta have some patience. Sometimes it might take you several months and take you a good time to find that right horse, but don't just rush into it, because it's a big, investment, and…
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Kathy Anderson: And so you need to take your time, you need to make sure that it's right. Go look at the thing more than once, you know, be pretty careful about what you do, and those types of things.
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Kathy Anderson: The other thing is, is I would be very cautious, unless you know a lot of the background, is to go to the horse sale and buy one out of the ring, from a horse sale. Because unless you really know the horse, and you really know he's coming from.
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Kathy Anderson: That, you need to be pretty careful, and also look at the type of sale that you might be going to.
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Kathy Anderson: There's some that are gonna have more reputable types of situations, more reputable sellers, and those things, because when you go to a horse sale, you don't get to get on and ride them and try them. You're just there to observe and this and that, and so I know some folks, when we had a horse in the sale, they would come to our place.
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Kathy Anderson: Before the sale to see if they could look at it, potentially ride it, some of those kinds of things, so they knew a little bit more about the horse before it actually walked in the rink. And so, be very, very careful, about going to a horse sale, you know, to buy a good broke horse, because you might get a really good deal that's wonderful, and you might also get stung pretty bad. So, yeah.
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Kris Hiney: So what are some other, like, red flags that, you know, because, again, you guys both have mentioned, like, a lot of times now, we're looking at horses through social media. They have an increasing amount of online auctions, so you don't even see the horse in person.
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Kris Hiney: So how… how do you navigate that, or what might be some things that would trigger you to say, oh, I don't… I don't know about this?
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Kathy Anderson: I'll let you start off, Robin.
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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, I don't have a great answer to this, to be honest. We were really fortunate. We limited our search to places we could go, and go actually look at horses, and we looked at…
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Robyn Stewart: I think we only looked at 4 in person.
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Robyn Stewart: And they were all kind of the same circumstance I mentioned, where we asked a bunch of questions on the front end, got reasonable answers back. And so, by reasonable, what I mean is.
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Robyn Stewart: we didn't have anybody tell us they had a perfect horse that was perfect all the time and was never gonna set a foot wrong, right? We had people that were very transparent about the horse's limitations, about any bad habits, about their backgrounds.
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Robyn Stewart: And that was really something that we appreciated and was beneficial to us.
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Robyn Stewart: But…
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Robyn Stewart: kind of as you said, you know, I also… one of the things I really looked for is I didn't really look at ads where we didn't have good pictures and videos. I wanted really good confirmation photos of the horse, so I could really get a feel for how they were built. There's a lot of ads out there with really bad pictures, where you cannot see anything about that horse, how they're put together, and really bad videos, or videos where that horse is not being shown in a way
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Robyn Stewart: that you can get a good idea of how it moves, of whether it has any soreness or lameness or anything like that. So if I felt like I didn't get the pictures and videos that I needed to assess that animal for what we were trying to do, I didn't even really consider them. So that's maybe one really good piece of advice, is look for ads that have good selling points on the visual end of it. What's written in the text matters, but
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Robyn Stewart: People can lie, so pictures, at least, are a little bit more, telling, in my opinion, and videos can be a little bit more telling than, what people will put in the text.
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Kathy Anderson: So, a couple little things that I kind of tell people when they're actually going to look at the horse. So, the person knows you're coming, so you walk into the barn, he's saddled.
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Kathy Anderson: he's sweaty, so they've lunged there, I already worked him, and some of those different kinds of things. And so, kind of, you know, investigate, okay, you know, when we had somebody come in to buy one of our horses, we would pull him out of the sock hold.
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Kathy Anderson: We'd settle them in front of them, we'd take them and lunge them, because it's like, this is what you're getting. You don't always have that. You're gonna walk in and they're sweaty, they've either been ridden or already lunged and worked down, it's like…
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Kathy Anderson: Maybe a flag, maybe not, but take good notes, take good observations.
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Kathy Anderson: Then the… and then the other thing is, look closely at their feet. Pick up their shoes, pick up their feet, look how their feet have been done. They are only going to have therapeutic or special shoes on their feet for a reason.
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Kathy Anderson: They are expensive, so you're not going to have bar shoes, rollers, different kinds of funky shoes on horses' feet unless there is a reason for them.
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Kathy Anderson: I mean, we bought some older horses for our kids when they were showing. They all had issues, we knew what we were doing.
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Kathy Anderson: But we're a little bit more different, we're a little bit more experienced. My husband's a veterinarian, you know, so we knew what we were getting into, we knew what we were going to have to do, but we did get the price brought down quite a bit, okay? So that's where coming in with experience, or somebody with good experience, because if they just say, oh, blah blah blah blah blah.
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Kathy Anderson: Red flags, start to wonder, what's the deal?
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Kathy Anderson: We had an older horse of my daughter's zipper, and I've told a lot of zipper stories. Well, he was 20-something when we purchased him. He had different things. He had white marks all down his, his, cannon bones and all down the back of his… on his tendons and ligaments.
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Kathy Anderson: Those are a flag. They're not… you can tell the difference between a white marking and white marks from when they've had an issue. And so this horse had had some tendon things. We knew the people that had had him, they'd had him for 15 years, and so we understood the situation that we were getting into. So look at some of those kinds of things, you know, white…
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Kathy Anderson: white hair… sometimes white hairs on their face are gray, they're old, sometimes they've got different things that have been done to those horses, and so look for the difference of a white marking versus white hairs that are there from an injury, from an issue, and some of those kinds of things. Some of those horses might have had old injuries, and they're perfectly fine, okay? The zipper horse that we got, we didn't have to do anything special to him, he had different things, and he was fine, but we kind of knew what we were
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Kathy Anderson: getting. And so, pay attention to some of those kinds of things, and look pretty close, to all the markings, all their feed, stuff like that. So…
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Kris Hiney: Okay.
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Kris Hiney: What about the instance, because we all know, like, if you're riding a horse, sometimes it takes a little bit to… to figure them out, so…
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Kris Hiney: you know, what about that, where you ride them, and it's like, well, this isn't quite a fit, but… but somebody's like, oh, you'll just get used to them. Like, is… is that a common experience that…
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Kris Hiney: like, you do take them home and it gets better, or like… because I just know, like, they have different personalities, right? They've been ridden in a different way than maybe you've done, so how do you navigate that with trying to mesh, like.
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Kris Hiney: What you do with what the horse has known in the past.
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Kathy Anderson: Yeah, I think some of those are going to come up kind of with the level of training and what your expectations are from that horse. I mean…
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Kathy Anderson: I would certainly hope that if you're buying a trail riding horse, you're buying different kinds of ones, that those kind of situations are going to be different if you're buying a horse that's broke to show, you haven't been shown, and those types of things, because they're going to have different buttons and different things like that.
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Kathy Anderson: So that's when you might come back a second time and ride him again, riding more than once. If you really like the horse, maybe you talk to… if whomever you're purchasing from is not super far away, maybe you're gonna negotiate a deal where you do some… you do some lessons with that person, so that they can help you, figure the horse out, because
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Kathy Anderson: Most of the time, the seller should want you to be successful, they should want you to go ahead and get along with the source, because their reputation's on the line. And so a good seller, you know, wants this to work, and they don't want it to be… have a negative outcome. And so sometimes, okay, can I come bring back for lessons here or there? Can I do this? Can I do that?
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Kathy Anderson: they should be amiable to that. Now, if it's 3-4 hours away, that's a different kind of situation that you might be dealing with. But yeah, sometimes they can be challenging to get along with, because… especially when you have one that has a lot of, what I say, buttons and stuff, that's been kind of high-end trained to do XYZ,
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Kathy Anderson: That's gonna be a little bit different than one that you might be just buying to ride down the road. So, what's your thoughts, Robin?
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Robyn Stewart: we're actually dealing with this. So, we… we bought a wonderful 11-year-old cooler horse, we went out, rode him, I should add, so I've been riding most of my life, and I've done a little bit of everything, so I would call myself a pretty competent rider.
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Robyn Stewart: And as I said, my boyfriend's very much a beginner. He walked jogs pretty confidently, was starting to lope a little bit, so he's very much learning. And we have a wonderful horse, rode fine when we tried him, we brought him home, and he rides well for me. But my boyfriend is having a heck of a time with him.
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Robyn Stewart: Unfortunately.
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Robyn Stewart: And it is something that we have a horse that is pretty well-mannered, he's very patient, he's very kind, he's got a great temperament, but he has figured out that he can take advantage of him. And he can park himself in the middle of the arena, and my poor boyfriend just doesn't quite know what to do about that.
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Robyn Stewart: So they are learning, and it is improving, and it is one of those that… it is a horse that is tolerant and patient and kind.
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Robyn Stewart: And because he has a good demeanor, we are just working through it, and it's gonna take time. And we have accepted that this is gonna take a learning curve on my boyfriend's end to learn how to ride this horse.
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Robyn Stewart: I should also add the only other horse that my boyfriend has ridden is mine, who's a 21-year-old Arabian. So he went from a horse that you barely touch, and he moves, he's got a motor, to a horse that parks himself and says, great! And when we are out on trail, he says, hey, there's an all-you-can-eat buffet here for me to munch on.
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Robyn Stewart: So he's learning, and maybe that would be my reminder of.
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Robyn Stewart: What is a reasonable behavior, and what is a reasonable expectation?
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Robyn Stewart: We knew that we were buying something for his temperament.
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Robyn Stewart: and for his soundness more than we were buying for his training. And we are dealing with the aftermath of that, right? We're dealing with the fact that my boyfriend has a lot to learn, and this horse is gonna help him learn. So we're thankful that he's patient and kind, and it's going fine, and of course, the horse is great for me, does everything I want him to do, but they're just gonna have to learn how to navigate that together, and I think that that is going to be fine long-term.
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Robyn Stewart: I think that they're gonna make a good team. It's just something that has a learning curve, and as I tell him, you know, every horse is trained
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Robyn Stewart: with different instructions, right? And we all like to think that we know how that horse was taught to do things.
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Robyn Stewart: But we might not be speaking the exact same language, right? Maybe I'm speaking Italian and the horse is speaking Spanish, and we're trying to get the gist of it, but we're not quite there. And so that's what I remind him of, is sometimes we need to have the patience with the horse and with ourselves to kind of learn the language together to continue to progress towards what they want to do.
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Kris Hiney: I think that's so important, because I know, you know, when I was, showing my horses, and I showed raining horses, and then I would try to help students learn, you know, put more novice people on them, and the horses would be like, what the heck? And they would, they'd end up in the middle of the arena going, that's it.
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Robyn Stewart: Thank you.
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Kris Hiney: You don't know what you're doing, I'm done. So these horses that, you know, you know, would trot 10 minutes at the beginning, and then lope the rest of the time I was riding them, they were like, nope, I don't even know, we'll never lope for you. So… so there is that reality of… that I think novice riders really…
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Kris Hiney: I think it's important to recognize that getting help…
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Kris Hiney: is super, super important to figure it out, because the horses that have been trained by people that ride a lot, right? I just think, boy, do you… it's so different for those horses when a novice rider's on them.
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Robyn Stewart: And I think it's really important that you said, Chris, that you get help with the horse. Because we talked about whether this horse needs to go to training for 30 days, but the problem is, he doesn't do it for me.
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Robyn Stewart: Right? And it's taking advantage of the rider, and so I think there's an advocacy of, if you need help, get help, but get help with the horse. Don't just send the horse off, unless it is something maybe behaviorally, that needs to be corrected to be a safe horse, right? But I do think advocating to take some lessons or get some help with your horse is absolutely valid.
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Kathy Anderson: I'm gonna say your boyfriend's really lucky to have you.
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Robyn Stewart: I have told him, as he is sitting in the middle of the arena, so frustrated, I've been very clear. I've said, if you want to sell the horse, we can sell him and find you something else, and he's like, I like this horse. I'm like, alright, then you're gonna learn how to… how to ride this horse, and he's gonna teach you a lot, but you're gonna have to be patient with it, and it's gonna take some time to figure out.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, yeah, everybody, I think, fails to realize they're not motorcycles, right? They're their own selves that have been taught something very specific, and how one rides and applies aids is so different. You know, we tend to… we would like to imagine we're all the same and doing the same things, but in all reality.
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Kris Hiney: It's not true.
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Kris Hiney: So what about, Kathy, you talked a little bit about, buying show horses, so there's, like, buying the first horse, there's also decisions to…
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Kris Hiney: to upgrade, right? That's often when people are buying a new horse, is that maybe they have different goals now, or they want to try a new thing. So what is… is the advice any different if one is
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Kris Hiney: Out looking for an upgrade.
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Kathy Anderson: Yeah, I mean, I think the advice is the same, just who you deal with might vary a little bit, and that element of trust, to me, is very, very important. I mean, I've had some friends that went.
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Kathy Anderson: It had shown horses quite some time, and it was just… the other horse had gotten.
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Kathy Anderson: Wasn't as sound as it needed to be, those types of things, and so they went shopping, okay, and they didn't quite find what they really were looking for, or they got impatient, and so they didn't buy the best horse.
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Kathy Anderson: So, you know, kind of the guidelines, the suggestions are really not much different.
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Kathy Anderson: But that person that you're consulting with might change, okay? If you're going to be working with an instructor, a trainer, sometimes it helps to have them brought into the mix.
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Kathy Anderson: So long as it's money that you have… already have a relationship, or you know, because they might have some horses they know, they also know a little bit more what
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Kathy Anderson: with what you're looking for, what fits that particular person's program, and how they ride them and train them. Because just because they say that they train rope horses, there can be 15 different methods that people might use. And so, for them to kind of have a good understanding of those types of things, to me, is important.
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Kathy Anderson: And another thing to think about, we haven't really brought this out, and it's kind of, kind of the down and dirty that people don't want to look into. It can apply to anything, but I think, especially if you're looking at the show horse world, ones that have already been out there, you might consider having, having that horse
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Kathy Anderson: a pre-purchase done on it, and also potentially a drug test done on it, to see if that horse has been medicated, because unfortunately, it goes on. That's also, if you're working with a professional that you have a trust with.
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Kathy Anderson: they can help say, yeah, we better do some background checking, some more checking on this particular horse, because these individuals we know have had some issues. And other times it's a non-issue. But I do know of some folks that purchased a horse, brought it home, about 10 days, 2 weeks later, all of a sudden it becomes this monster, because whatever it had been on kind of wears off.
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Kathy Anderson: And that's a side of the industry a lot of people don't want to address, but it's out there. And especially, I think, sometimes when you get into the show horse world, the higher stakes type of deal, they'll do some things to mask.
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Kathy Anderson: some kind of issue. Sometimes it's lameness stuff, sometimes it's behavior stuff. So it's something to think about, and yeah, if you're getting into the show horse world.
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Kathy Anderson: You gotta do a little bit more investigation, you gotta do a little bit more knowing where that horse is coming from. Maybe you've… that horse has been in your area, and you've watched it show for a few years, and so that's a little bit different than if you're, say, okay, these horses I found on the internet, what do we think of them? We're gonna go… we're potentially gonna go run around and look at them, or have somebody I know that I can trust that's gonna go look at them, because it can be expensive, the process of trying to hunt up some
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Kathy Anderson: So, hunt up any horse, but particularly if one… if he's some kind of distance away.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, so having a veterinarian you trust, and I think that's a great idea, you know what, maybe pull blood, and then if something crops up, like, we're testing this sucker, better look at your contract. So… so I wanna… I wanna come back to contracts, but I… I kind of wanted to mention, when you're looking about upgrades, right, because there's…
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Kris Hiney: there's really, to me, three, maybe there's more ways, but there's 3 ways to upgrade, right? So, is the big ticket, right? So you spend a lot of money on a nice horse.
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Kris Hiney: Or, there's, like, your condition, they're older with some issues, but that brings the price down, right? So if you're willing to deal with some of the more higher-level care, soundness, you can get all that experience.
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Kris Hiney: And then a lot of people go the other way, is you try to buy the hot genetics… the prospect.
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Kris Hiney: And go that route. So… Any feelings about…
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Kris Hiney: Changing tactics and going prospect hunting?
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Kathy Anderson: I think you really need to keep your budget in mind and stick with it, because it's easy to get emotional, and it's easy to get, oh, I love this horse, and all of a sudden, what you thought you were spending $10,000 on now comes to $20,000. I went down the road myself of selling a very broke horse, that was very quiet and easy to show.
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Kathy Anderson: to ending up with a 2-year-old prospect that's taken some time to get her ready to show. So you have to understand.
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Kathy Anderson: And if you're going the prospect route, you might be taking you a while before you actually get that horse to the show pen. And you have to decide, can I do it this my… can I do this myself? I'm experienced or knowledgeable and have the skills to do it? Or do I need to pull in some professional assistance, some professional training? So that…
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Kathy Anderson: one horse that you purchase as a prospect, it might seem that it's relatively inexpensive, but you need to add in the cost of potential training and time and all those types of things, and you have to decide, am I going to be patient?
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Kathy Anderson: Am I buying this 2-year-old here in January and think I'm going to be showing it a whole bunch this summer? Probably not, you know, so you have to decide where are you at in your career, what are you most interested in? I would never buy a very young green horse for a child, okay? We used to use the phrase,
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Kathy Anderson: That was it, like…
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Robyn Stewart: Neon green makes black and blue.
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Kathy Anderson: There you go. That's what I was thinking of. And that's very true, you know, oh, they can grow up together. Yeah, that's not… that's not the smartest thing. You know, case in point, my kids were very experienced showmen, and my daughter's best show horses were in their 20s when we purchased them, because we didn't have the time to break them and get them going, and they were automatic, ready to go.
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Kathy Anderson: And so, you know, you have to think of some of those kinds of things, and a kid growing up with a horse, it sounds great, but you're probably not gonna… it's probably not gonna work as well, and you're gonna spend a lot of time just getting that horse ready… ready where you… it would be safe for that young… youngster to go ahead and take to the Chopin.
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Kris Hiney: So let's… I wanted to mention contracts just a little bit, because that…
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Kris Hiney: If it doesn't work out, like, what would you be looking for in your sales contract to…
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Kris Hiney: give you some grace period, because not all contracts even have that, so is that something that you should require? Is that commonly in there?
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Kris Hiney: What do you guys think?
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Robyn Stewart: I think it depends a little bit, because we were talking about, like, a step-up course, and I kept kind of thinking about
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Robyn Stewart: what the level of step-up is, right? And how, if I was expecting to go buy a competition horse to go show more seriously with, that my process of buying might be a little different, because it'd involve a lot more trial focus, making sure the horse and I are a good fit. So I think that
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Robyn Stewart: Having a trial is always a good idea, especially in that kind of scenario, depending on kind of the value of the horse. And looking to see if you can have, like, a 10-14 day period to either have it on-site, if it's close enough that it can stay at home, that'll reduce stress level for the animal and allow you to kind of experience it in an environment it's used to.
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Robyn Stewart: But if you can bring it home, even, and just spend some time getting to know it, riding it, being on it, and see if it's a good fit. And I think that, in my experience, the trials were under a separate contract than your actual purchase contract was.
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Robyn Stewart: And typically that contract for a trial would include things like, are they going to hold a deposit from you? If yes, is it refundable? Is it not? How does it play into purchase price?
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Robyn Stewart: liability insurance for the animal in case anything were to happen during that trial period, where it was gonna go, so on and so forth. So, in my experience, the trial period has been its own separate contract from the actual bill of sale contract that would have purchased the animal. And at the end of a trial, if it's not the right fit, you bring the horse home, it's not the right fit. And if it is the right fit, then you keep them, and then you have your separate bill
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Robyn Stewart: of sale to actually complete the agreement.
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Kathy Anderson: So then on the flip side of that, from the seller, some sellers are very hesitant to do a trial, especially if the horse leaves their place. Because once it's loaded in the trailer and drives off, you have no control over the horse and how it's handled and how it's treated. And so, I can understand with a seller being very hesitant to let the horse leave.
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Kathy Anderson: Because you don't know where it's going, you don't know how it's going to be handled, you don't know what's going to be done to it, and so, you know, there's kind of a give and take. So it's something that you need to talk about. I agree, some of us are not very good about having written contracts.
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Kathy Anderson: And you need to, especially if you have a trial going on, some of those types of things, and really think about some of how that's going to be best for both parties.
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Kathy Anderson: for it to be handled in a professional, in a safe manner, so everybody understands the situation and what's… what if something, you know, should go bad. So, yep.
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Kris Hiney: And I think that's, what you said there about the seller. I wouldn't necessarily doubt the seller if they were reluctant to turn their horse over to you, right? Because what if you were like, let's see if I can trail ride it through the mountains and, like, turn it into a bear horse? Like, so there are a lot of things that I'd be like.
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Kris Hiney: I don't think I want you trying, that horse out. So maybe they'd be more comfortable that it was in, you know, a more professional boarding facility, or, you know, some strict guidelines, but, I mean, that's a lot of faith to just hand…
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Kris Hiney: hands sometimes an expensive animal over, so I could also see the seller being like, yeah, yeah, I'm not up for that.
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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, absolutely.
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Kathy Anderson: Oh, it matters.
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Robyn Stewart: with discourage.
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Kathy Anderson: Yeah.
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Kathy Anderson: I wouldn't completely discount a seller if they're pretty hesitant over that, because maybe they've been burned before, had some bad experiences, and this and that, and so you need to kind of come to a happy medium, a happy agreement.
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Kathy Anderson: Yeah.
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Kris Hiney: But that may be where, potentially, you could put into the contract, like, a trial period or something, or the buyer has the ability to return it for such and such, who knows, so that there's kind of a negotiation there.
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Kris Hiney: To try to keep both parties happy.
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Kathy Anderson: Right.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, no, no, go ahead.
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Robyn Stewart: One other thing just to be mindful of is be mindful that if you just Google a horse bill of sale, it may or may not be a legally binding document.
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Robyn Stewart: And I would recommend that you get a contract that is actually written for your state, and actually has the contents to be binding legally, rather than just something off the internet.
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Kris Hiney: Great. Know your state's laws, in other words.
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Kris Hiney: So, any other tips or advice, for people? Maybe they're getting a course for Christmas now, who knows, but any other, last things that we haven't covered?
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Kathy Anderson: I think I'm gonna go back to my other thing that I mentioned, you know, when you dive into this. Just be patient.
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Kathy Anderson: don't… don't rush into stuff, don't say, I've got to have this horse today, you know, just be patient with what you're doing. If you're trying to, you know, do a horse for Christmas and you haven't figured out what you do, make a little fun thing to give them under the tree and say, this is what we're doing, you know, instead of having that pony under the tree that ends up being
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Kathy Anderson: You know, not what you really intended, not what you really wanted, because a bad one can ruin a person forever, and so you want to start it off in a positive and a very good manner, so…
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Kathy Anderson: Yep.
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Robyn Stewart: I would echo that, and I would just say, make sure you have an idea of what your priorities are. And that's going to be different for everybody, right? But I tell people, you know, for us, our biggest, most important things were soundness, confirmation, and health. We wanted a horse that was in good condition. Our second most important was training and temperament.
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Robyn Stewart: And we had things that we wanted, right? Like, he wanted something with color, we had an age bracket we wanted, we had breeds we wanted, we had sizes we wanted, but none of those things really mattered.
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Robyn Stewart: as much as the health and temperament and ability to do the job. So, and that might be different for everybody, but really sit back and think about what do I have to have in this horse, and what are the things that might be nice to have, but aren't the end of the world.
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Kris Hiney: Well, I appreciate your guys' time and sharing, your experiences in the horse buying world. Certainly an exciting time when anybody is looking to… to go down that shopping road. So you don't get to go horse shopping that often, unless, maybe, I guess, if you're a horse trader, but…
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Kris Hiney: For the average person, it doesn't get to come up that… that terribly often, so…
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Kris Hiney: Well, I really, really appreciate it, and we can certainly link to any information that we have with Extension Horses on how to buy horses or tips for novice horse owners or first-time horse owners. So there's always a plethora of information at our website, extensionhorses.com.
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Kris Hiney: And with that, we'll wrap up another episode of our Tack Box Talk, Horse Stories with a Purpose.