Horse-dealing

The horse I wished I could buy is gone.

Allegedly he has been sold, although the rumor is that the woman who "bought" him doesn't want him after all, and is just paying for his board at another facility until she can find an actual buyer. In the mean time, I heard an interesting comment about the horse: the young woman who was selling him was telling prospective buyers that the horse was 15 years old. That's not too old for a horse; horses get sensible between about 10 and 17. But someone heard his previous owner say that the horse was 19. That would have been last year. Now this lovely horse is 20, and that's getting to the end of a useful career for a horse. Granted, a horse can be sweet and functional to 30, but that's kind of unusual.

So now I understand why this young woman was so hot to get rid of him. He's an old horse, and she wants to do team cow penning, like in a rodeo, like you can't do on an old horse.

But she lied about his age, and may have gotten $3000 for him. That's ridiculous. A 20-year-old horse shouldn't sell for more than $1000, and you'd have a hard time finding a taker for that.

Horse trading is unbelievably shady. I bought my first horse for $400. He was 11 years old, and I was assured that he was just a big, fat, lazy, stupid horse. All I wanted was a plug to jog around the pasture on. But Crow was just big and fat, he wasn't lazy, and he wasn't stupid. He also wasn't quite sane, or quite broken to the saddle.

When I found a horse to replace him, I made an appointment to ride the horse. I showed up, and the new horse was lovely. The man who was selling him told me someone else had showed up but were unsure. So I jumped up on the horse, and was very pleased. Only one thing more: I needed to see how he felt under my own saddle. The owner was agreeable. The minute I rounded the corner of the building, the other people whipped out a check -- and bought him, having seen with their own eyes that he was a quality mount. Sold right out from under me.

The next horse was a genius on the trail, a big red quarterhorse with a pedigree a lot longer than mine. I bought him, and had several good rides on him. What the seller didn't say was that one ride in any location would be great; however, the second one would be a nightmare, as once Chet knew the way home, he was going to take you there in a split second. After a 40-minute battle along a busy road, I knew I hated him. I missed work that day because I was exhausted to the point of sickness. I sold him for next to nothing to a girl who had owned him nearly 10 years before and had missed him horribly all those years. Good luck to her.

I've tried once more to buy a second horse; after I shook hands on the deal, and made arrangements to get the horse hauled to my facility, the fellow called me up and told me he couldn't bring himself to go through with it, as the horse liked to be fed peanuts in the evening, and was like the man's best friend. (He didn't like to ride, but he did like to feed the horse peanuts. Go figure.)

Fortunately I've still got Duquesne, the Stinky Dink. Do you think I would sell him? Not for any price.

Maybe the only horses that get sold are crappy ones.