The Details

So, the full story. Remember when I talked about how my barn owner went through horses really fast? I mentioned a certain mare, her name is Sissy.

Well, I bought her. Her new owner that bought her from my BO was selling her, I noticed via Facebook. I made the comment to my BO that I wish I could afford her, since she was listed for $6500. Soooo, the BO talked to the new owner, JS, and told me that she'd take $2500 with payments. I talked to JS and got the price down to $2000 if I came and picked her up on Saturday (today) and hauled a horse for her. Basically it was a - "come get her tomorrow at this price or she goes back up to her original asking price".

I've been oscillating between panic and excitement. I spent the whole entire day yesterday messaging my BO and JS determining the terms of our agreement. I'm super stressed. This is the most expensive horse I've ever bought. I mean, my last three horses were FREE (well, ok, I didn't actually own them) and here I am buying a horse for $2000. I've never spent over $750 on a horse (Jetta) so this is crazy for me. Add in the fact that I haven't even sold Queenie yet, and I have THREE horses at the moment. What is this craziness???

Anyways, today went fairly smoothly. It was a LOT of driving and I ended up spending about 6 hours on the road. I had to go pick up JS's new horse - a 17.2hh TB that hadn't been handled for the last 6 years. That was fun. Reminded me a lot of getting Jetta. It took forever to wrangle the horses since a couple weren't halter broke. Luckily the big guy loaded up with only a slight hesitation.

JS lives in the middle of nowhere so it was a slightly worrying drive - I made three wrong turns and ended up having to turn the trailer around to go back the correct direction. Let's just say my trailer turning mojo was not with me today, but we made it.

I got to JS's barn, signed the papers and loaded up my new pony! I've decided to name her Misty since I didn't like Sissy that much. Still needs a new show name though (recommendations welcome!). Her registered name is Henny Penny which is just AWFUL. Ack. She's six years old and maybe 15 hands so she's way smaller than I'm used to. The plan is to turn her into my all around horse. The person who owned her before my BO supposedly had a ranch and moved cows on her and did breakaway roping. I'd like to do some sorting and reining on her, as well as competitive trail in addition to doing dressage and possibly teaching her to jump. 

She's a nice mover and easily tracks up at the walk and trot and has a lovely natural headset. She's straight paint/QH breeding so no TB in her. Her only fault I think so far is her feet. She has front shoes on, but threw one of them so she only has one shoe. Her hooves are a little bit upright, but at least they're big, no tiny halter hooves here. She has a definite toe-first landing and contracted heels so it'll take a bit to get them in shape, but I don't think there'll be a problem transitioning her to full barefoot. She has a scar on her left front pastern that's hosting some scratches so I'm going to get to work on getting rid of that pronto.

Tomorrow is going to be a spa day/first ride. Eek! I can't believe I bought a horse with this little preparation. I've seen her be ridden maybe three times at my barn, I've never ridden her myself. Just crazy. I don't know what got into me, but I'm blaming my barn owner for talking to JS and getting her to bring the price down... It's still a lot of money for me, but I just have to think that it's "just money". I can earn it back and if I need to resell Misty (though I'm not planning on it) after a little more training I think I can make a nice profit.