The value of a horse

For years I've been fond of referring to my favorite horses as "million dollar horses".  They aren't truly worth $1,000,000, but that's what they are worth to me.  In other words - priceless.

  Chandra is one of those horses.  We share a bond that few experience.  We forgive each other our faults and treasure our strengths.  At 26 she is still very athletic and much beloved.  And she gives kisses!

  Habib Rafiq is another one of these.  He sees me as his lead mare and my daughter as his foal.  I am convinced he would die for either of us.

  My foals start at top dollar because I would rather raise them up and get them started under saddle.  That way I know they are broke to ride and hopefully will have a good future.  I raise horses because I want other people to have a horse like the two above.  I don't breed for a top halter or Park horse.  I breed for "best friends".  But that's another topic.

  Today I want to explain a portion of the mental process I go through to price a horse.  I'm using a grade POA gelding to illustrate this process.

  Prince was a sad sight when we picked him up, but his eyes were bright and he trotted up with energy.  To look at him you would think he was on his last legs and maybe he was.  His backbone stuck up enough that you wouldn't dare ride him.  Was I crazy?  No, I trusted what had been told to me - "He's a good horse, well trained, who deserves a chance."  OK, load him up.  Maybe I'm a sucker, maybe I'm lucky.  Time will tell.

  When we got him home we hid him in a paddock well off the road for a couple of weeks, so we could put some weight on him - he was that poor.  We didn't want to explain to well meaning people that we just got him and putting weight on a horse takes time.

  After a few months of weight gain we began riding him.  He was barn sour and seemed to only direct rein, but he never bucked, reared or ran away.  He would just turn toward home and walk.  I thought to myself that he was about a $500 horse.  You know the type - goes walk, trot, lope, but needs at least an intermediate rider.

  A few more rides later I began to see more value in the solid guy.  Prince's idea of spooking is to tense his neck and stare at anything unusual.  Nice!  and low and behold - he neck reins.  Of course, he neck reins better turning toward home!  But even the barn sour got better.  He would turn toward home and I would point his head in the direction I wanted to go until he gave up.  I'm more stubborn than he is.  I also discovered that he backs like a dream.  Ex 4-H horse?  Possibly.  Now my mental price for him went up to $750.

  After a week solid of riding almost every day he was crossing bridges, jogging like a western pleasure horse, trotting like a hunter and moving out at a strong trot.  Three (3!) speeds of trot!  and he would hold each until I cued him to change (stabilization).  And his canter?  Big and rolling like a warmblood, but he didn't like to keep it.  Great for a less confident rider.  $1,000 horse - good for advanced beginners.  Wow! What a difference.  He even follows a bicycle or another horse like one of those rent by the hour horses.  Of course, he leads just fine, too.

  A week later Prince rarely even tried to go home.  I think part of that was stopping to let him graze.  Leaving home becomes a good thing when you get 15 minutes of lush grass!  This was the point I decided to bring a a 3 year old gelding up from pasture to start him under saddle.

  The pasture is a mile down the road from the house.  Sometimes I trailer them.  Sometimes I hand walk them.  That day I chose to pony him from Prince's back.  I had never ponied off of Prince, but I had ponied Prince from Chandra's back - he did better than she did.  So, I ride down there using a western saddle.

  The horses in the pasture were too busy eating hay to bother coming to the gate, so I dismounted and led Prince in.  Once I was near the hay it took several minutes to shew off the dominant horses, then Inshalla let me halter him easily.  Both geldings led quietly out of the pasture, which gave me hope that this would go well.

  Inshalla was intimidated by Lisa's bicycle, so I had her go ahead of us.  Although, truthfully, his idea of spooking is about like Prince's - turn to face it.  Of course, turning to face the bike while it's behind us would have made ponying him difficult.

  We headed down the road toward the house.  Inshalla didn't want to go, but Prince just kept walking, dragging Inshalla by the rope wrapped around the saddle horn.  What a trooper!  Inshalla finally gave up resisting and walked or trotted to keep up with Prince, who has a good strong walk.  Prince never took a misstep.  Even when our dogs rejoined us on the road - crashing through tall weeds in the process and startling Inshalla, who trotted 3 strides, so he could turn and see what had made that noise.

  Good old solid Prince.  Inshalla's nose just inches from his tail - no problem.  Inshalla trotting past him - no problem.  Stopping to adjust Inshalla's halter - no problem.  Dogs running by - no problem.  Cars, trucks and trailers going by - no problem.

  Prince is not currently on the for sale list, but if he was, I would be pricing him at $2000.  You just don't find horses like him for sale.  I'm very glad that I gave him a chance!  I think maybe he is glad, too.

Reaching out to the community

We have visitors today.  A nice family interested in trading work for some unused equipment I have laying around, turning into rust piles.  Better to have the stuff used!

We spent about 30 seconds looking at said equipment (he'd seen it before), then walked out to the pasture to see the horses ... and donkey ... and llama.  Turns out the llama was the big hit.  When a camelid walks up to you to smell your hair - and touch it - and that head is higher than most adults, well, that's impressive.  here she is from when we got her:

Like every good horse person, I was more than willing to answer every question they posed about the horses.  You never know what kind of people they are until you talk a while and I prefer to assume they are horse people until proven otherwise.  Turns out they are horse people, just not recently.  So, I'm cultivating the relationship with them.  If they are going to get back into horses, it might as well be with Arabians, right?

And that's the point of this blog.  Take every opportunity that presents itself to talk horses with the people you meet.  If they are coming to see your lawn mower you've advertised for sale, take them on a tour of the horses, if they seem at all interested.  It's the job of every horse lover out there to "spread the illness" that is our love of horses.  These people left with a photo of their daughter on a pony (I couldn't get her to get on the totally bombproof stallion because he was so much bigger).  Next time she may be brave enough to actually ride!

To top it off, one of their friends who came with wants to come out and help out around the farm.  OK, that's a win-win for me because I have 22 horses right now and not enough time to work with them all.  She wants to know "everything".  Boy can I help her there!  Shovel manure.... ride a horse.  Mend some fence ... play with the new babies.

Do you have work that needs doing?  Maybe you can befriend a horse-less person and introduce them to your horses.  Horse-itis, it's a disease worth catching and spreading far and wide!  I've even seen ads on Craig's List where experienced horse people are looking for horses to hang around.  It's worth investigating, IMO.

One final picture:  Lisa on the pony the little girl sat on, in 2010, when Lisa was this little girl's age and size:

Karen

Lawton, OK