For those of you who missed my last post, I’m shopping for my first horse, and I’m taking you along for the ride. I went out again on my own without a teacher/trainer to try horses at two locations in one day.
My first stop was a ranch where they sell a lot of horses, dozens of them, throughout the year. I don’t know for sure, but I think they find inexpensive horses that are rusty and maybe haven’t been ridden in a while and tune them up. They don’t just get them used to carrying a rider again; they add some helpful training and desensitizing work.
They have their own obstacle course, a roping dummy, and even a few head of cattle to get horses used to working with them.
I rode two geldings they were offering in my price range: a light-colored Palomino,12, and a 10-year-old Appaloosa that was blind in one eye. One of the sweet horses at my lesson barn is blind in one eye, and it doesn’t seem to impact her abilities at all, so I wasn’t alarmed by that disability.
Two young trainers rode the horses first to show me all the basic gears and maneuvers. They both looked great. Then it was my turn.
The Appaloosa was on the hot side of the spectrum, meaning he liked to go. I found him a bit hard to control and didn’t feel like I was successful in communicating with him.
The Palomino was better. He stood stock still while he waited at the mounting block for me to get on. Then he mostly listened to my instructions as we walked, trotted and even loped a bit.
How horses can by like teenagers
Next, I visited a barn about 90 miles from home to see a 7-year-old gaited Rocky Mountain horse, a sorrel (copper-colored) gelding with a white blaze and white socks. The young woman selling him handed me his halter as we stood by his pen so I could see he didn’t try to run away from me while I got his halter on him.
I led him over to a rail at the arena so she could saddle him up. She first lunged him a bit on the ground with his saddle before putting the bridle on him. Lunging is when you use a halter and a long lead rope to move the horse around you, often in a circle. It demonstrates that the horse has good manners on the ground. It won’t try to run away, or worse, step on you.
Then she put the bridle on him and hopped on, demonstrating his various gaits: a basic walk, a flat walk (faster with a smooth, flowy look), and a racking gait (faster still, with a four-beat cadence).
He looked good doing all of it. When I asked her to have him back up, he seemed a bit confused or reluctant, tossing his head and going a bit sideways.
Then it was my turn to ride. He walked off okay, but there were a couple of spots in the arena where he just stopped without me asking. And it was hard to get him to move out again. Getting him to go faster also was hard for me.
Again, I felt humbled by my lack of experience. Horses can be a bit like sulky teenagers. They will test you to see if they can get out of doing chores. I didn’t like how much this gelding tested me.
Then the young woman had me try her 14-year-old black mare. She was short, sturdy and purdy.
Again, I put the halter on her and led her to the arena. Then the seller saddled and lunged her a bit and got on to demonstrate basic speeds and moves.
While she rode this black beauty, the gaited horse tied to the rail next to me was enjoying me petting and scratching his head and neck. Every time I stopped, the horse gently nudged me with his velvet nose.
Finding “a well broke horse”
Then it was my turn to ride the mare. This horse was more receptive to my cues but had a few moments of confusion. She had a great backup. I rode her at the walk, trot and loped a little. She was a little shorter than what I was looking for. I thanked the seller and called it a day.
I thought about the difference in the horses I’d seen so far. The one that listened to me the best was the Palomino. The others either got confused or tried to see what they could get away with, given the beginner on their backs.
At the barn selling the Palomino gelding, lots of young trainers ride the horses. Before they sell a horse, they take videos of it moving at different speeds in the arena, riding through an obstacle course, roping a dummy steer, going on trails, and more. In those videos, they’ll have four or five different riders, some of them kids.
And I think that makes a difference. A horse can learn to respond near perfectly to one skilled rider. But what happens when the horse has multiple riders? They learn to adapt and pay attention to differences in cues.
Finding a well broke horse is harder than I thought it would be.