Cue the music. While not a Neil Sedaka fan, I will agree that breaking up is hard to do. Even when it’s with a horse. This spring I decided that Finn was not the right horse for me. It wasn’t an easy decision. I’d brought him home leaning into his potential. This lovely young horse was underweight, hadn’t been ridden in about a year, and needed a home. I needed a horse to nurture and love. I had a lot of confidence in my ability to work with OTTBs — Finn was my fifth and he’d already been restarted. What could go wrong?
The answer was plenty.
Buying a horse is always a leap of faith, a gamble, a dream. Your horse is a partner with whom you plan to have great adventures whether they be showing, foxhunting or trail riding. Unfortunately, that dream doesn’t always pan out. Sometime it’s because a horse doesn’t excel at the discipline you want to pursue — it can’t jump high enough, run fast enough, isn’t brave enough, doesn’t have the right movement, is too spirited, too spooky. The list goes on.
Sometimes you can make it work. You might change your goals to correspond with your new horse’s talents or send your horse for professional training. Sometimes, you just have to admit the fit isn’t there. Years ago I got a young racehorse off the track who had a congenital stifle issue. The vet said it might get better with time and strengthening. It didn’t, so I sold him to someone who wanted to trail ride. I also had a TB mare who, it turned out, had no aptitude for jumping. I sold her to a woman who wanted to pursue dressage. The rest of my horses I’ve kept. Sometimes adjusting my goals — Kroni, for example, didn’t want to be an event horse, partially because he had such a small mouth and large tongue that bits were uncomfortable, but he turned out to be the best foxhunter.
Horses are expensive. There’s no way around that. So, when you have a horse that you don’t enjoy, how much responsibility do you have for finding them the right next home? Sometimes it’s not that hard. If the horse is a solid citizen that simply doesn’t excel in the discipline you want to pursue, you can find them another home. But, if the horse has a soundness issue or behavioral quirks, what do you do? Freedom is happily retired in Virginia and is now 26. He could live several more years and I’m happy to fund them. But what about the 8-year old horse? Will he or she be on your payroll for a decade or more? For the horse with issues, their long-term prognosis is not good. They can end up making the round of low-end auctions, or even worse, shipped to Mexico.
With Finn, I will admit to being part of the problem. He was big, beautiful and a fancy mover. He was not in good shape when I went to see him and his owner’s illness put him at jeopardy. I wanted to save him as a way of making up for my inability to save Zelda. I went into the situation with stars in my eyes and without really looking at the horse in front of me or taking into consideration my own limitations — namely, I’m a lot older than the last time I restarted an OTTB and I’ve had a few injuries that have left me less willing to ride through behavioral problems.
When I stopped looking forward to working with him, when I started to worry that he would hurt me, I decided to throw in the towel. I’d invested a year into his rehab and he looked great. But I didn’t feel comfortable pushing him through his resistances and the pro I’d worked with last year didn’t have time to school him. She offered to put me in touch with a young rider (20s) who was good with TBs. However, the first thought that ran through my mind was, what if he hurt her? I didn’t want to expose a non-professional, especially a young one, to a situation where she might get hurt.
Then I thought about selling him. How could I sell him to someone when I couldn’t even get him to long line without rearing?
So, I wrote to his previous owner and offered to send him back. I knew how much she cared for him and I wanted to give her the chance to find him a more suitable home.
That didn’t go well, to say the least.
Somewhat predictably (I might have had some of the same thoughts had I heard from a buyer experiencing problems with a horse a year down the road), she was angry. She was crying. Her horse had never behaved the way I described. What had I done to him? She had sold him to me because he would have a home with someone who would appreciate him and give him a job. And no, she wasn’t in the position to take him back.
Well, okay. I went back to the video taken the day I tried him and could see the same problems, now exacerbated because Finn was well fed, muscled up and feeling strong. Thirty years ago, twenty years ago, I would probably have put my big girl pants on, strapped on spurs and ridden him through it. I’d had horses in my past who required remedial training. But my 64-year old self didn’t feel up to it.
I considered sending Finn for professional training and went so far as to get recommendations. Would 60 days of pro rides give me the partner I wanted? Or would I have invested a few thousand more dollars into a horse that wasn’t going to work for me? Maybe at the end of it, I would have a horse that I could sell. I also thought about doing a complete physical evaluation to see if there was an underlying pain issue that was causing his behavior.
When Rosie’s owners expressed interest in him, I was delighted. They are professional trainers. I could be completely up front with my issues. I showed them video of him and then when they delivered Rosie, they saw first hand what he did and did not do. They would put him in a training program and felt pretty sure that he could be fixed. Most importantly, he did not intimidate them.
So far, it’s worked out great. He’s being ridden almost daily. Yes, he can be lazy and stubborn. Yes, he has days when the bushes are filled with mountain lions and other scary beasts. Yes, he hates leading a trail ride. But, he’s doing everything he’s asked (with some incentives) and has shown an aptitude for jumping. I guess that, in the end, I accomplished what I’d hoped for him: he’s healthy and on his way to being a horse that someone will enjoy and cherish.
How have you dealt with the horses that didn’t work for you?