Interludes: Rainy Day Ramblings

Interlude #1: The Weather & The Season

With a week of rain/snow in the forecast our training and workshop program is coming to a halt. We do have a GSHC practice scheduled for the 17^th of December in Ione at a covered arena. This will be the last practice of the year so it should be fun. We leave on a much needed vacation on the 21^st. Back on the 2^nd. Hard to be away from all the critters but we have a good friend keeping an eye on them while we are gone. For Cearra, this is the big test. With this much time off it will be interesting to see how much she retains and what her attitude is like when we get back. We have a pretty full schedule of workshops and practices the first quarter of 2017 so the focus for all the horses will be to knock the rust off and get them back into good mental shape. Should be a interesting time! Stay tuned!

Interlude #2: Trials and Tribulations

We stood out in the rain today because someone wanted to meet Cearra. IN…THE…RAIN. Sigh. This interlude was inspired by that meeting.

For us, working with a great minded, great hearted horse like Cearra is what it is all about. It makes us better in our horsemanship, it helps the horse become a valuable equine citizen and the partnership that is created is just good for the soul. When “life” gets ugly and demanding it is good to have horses and horsemanship to focus on and recharge the batteries.

For us, marketing and selling a horse just plan SUCKS! Let’s talk about “marketing” the horse. You want to be HONEST with everyone so you write an ad –or maybe you put together a blog – that covers the “good” and the “needs improvement” and you do your best to find a fair market price for the horse. You use some social media and horse focused sites and you wait. When the calls, emails or texts come in you see it all. From the clueless to the just plan rude, from the inexperienced to the “know-it-all” who obviously knows very little and every freaking thing in between. It just wears on the spirit.

We have heard it all. We have seen it all. It sucks. Period.

Here are some of the more recent highlights:  We met a person who was looking for a “spiritual connection” to the horse. Oooookkaaaay. We actually had some idiot tell us we gave them “too much information” in our ad! Seriously? WTF! Wow…so you don’t want to know about the horse and just want to waste your time and ours coming out to meet it? Nope. FIRED! We had a family INSIST to come out on a certain day at a certain time and when we accommodated them they acted like they were not interested in the horse much AND then they damaged our fence as they were leaving (still have not seen a penny for the damage either)! Nope, FIRED! We had a person come out on a Sunday –after insisting that was the only time they had (red flag #1) and we had a house FULL of guests- and tell us about all the experience they had with “show horses” (red flag #2) – and after seeing us do a variety of groundwork and under saddle exercises (the horse was a rock star and did great) they really didn’t seem interested in some real “hands on” time with the horse (get the F out –you test drive a car before you buy it)  stating that they were on a scouting mission and needed to bring their trainer (WTF-Over? Why not bring the trainer in the first place). Waste of time. FIRED! Having a “professional trainer” ask us about genetic testing (no, we were not going to breed her so we didn’t bother with said $200 test but if she wanted it done she could pay for it) and then gets PISSED when we asked questions about “who they were” and “what experience they have” because, as our ad stated, we are focused on what is BEST for the HORSE and we WERE GOING TO ASK SCREENING QUESTIONS. Needless to say we FIRED that whack-a-do too. We have received low ball offers, sight unseen. Again, WTF? That is just rude. We have had people make appointments and bring the whole freaking family out and never mentioned that we would be giving pony rides to the entire freaking family or that it was for a 10 year old NOVICE girl. Oh, and after the horse packed all the people (like six different people of all different skill levels) around and was a rock star, they tried to low ball offer us and give us a sob story. Nope, kick rocks! FIRED! We have had folks make an appointment and not show up or if they do it becomes clear they lied about their horsemanship knowledge (if you show up, expecting to actually work with the horse and are in cargo shorts and Birkenstock sandals you are going to get FIRED before you touch the lead rope). The scenarios can go on and on.

If we were “flipping horses” as some folks do then we would take the first decent offer. However we are not. We want THE BEST for the horse. We want the human to be a GOOD FIT because we do not want to see this horse back on the market anytime soon. We want to honest and clear. We want the horse to be treated well and the human to have some horse savvy and VERY CLEAR picture of the investment they are making.

Marketing and selling horses SUCKS! Don’t know how “professionals” do it on a regular basis. If we were independently wealthy we would take in project horses and then give them a forever home. Sadly we can’t. What we can do ALWAYS is train up the horse to the best of our ability and prepare the horse to be a valued and successful partner. Then we will wade through all the bat-shit crazy and find the RIGHT HUMAN for the horse. It is all about the horse. And maybe generating some good karma.

NOTE: Even in the pouring rain Cearra demonstrated some great ground skills and a “can do” attitude. Could not be more proud of this mare and her growth. Really hoping that certain “life” changes happen for us so we can keep her and be done with the crazy for a while.

 Cearra and I teaching a workshop.