PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU LOVE ABOUT HAVING A HORSE

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Have posted re struggling with being a new horse owner- grateful for all advice!!!. i now realise that its normal to be stressed at firstwhich has really helped.i need to see /imagine beyond this initial stage as the prev owner has offered to buy her back or loan her.I have to decide soon as she is viewing others if i dont offer her back but she wd prefer her back.i could loan her back as well as sell.

Am also feeling terrible guilt as the costs mean that my family who are behind me,will be resitricted in experinces thay can have such as school trips ,holidays, choices of meals out and general ease of life cf with continous scrimplig if i keep her.dd has pony too you see. dh says i can keep her if it makes me happy but i dont know if it does yet.!!!

I totally know that there is only me that can make this decision- but i need to know what is good about it as ive been stressed since got her - prob due to change in lifestyle,responsibility etc.Someone put in another post - riding school experience =80% fun and 20 % crap and ownership is 80% and %20 fun- thats how i feel at the moment so please tell me why it changes and how it feels for you !!

Your OP is exactly why I haven't got myself a horse. I'd love one, and was offered one on loan, but I just couldn't justify it. I have two ponies for the dds and tbh all my extra time is taken up with them (even though the girls do a lot).

I borrow a friend's horse to ride sometimes and I love it and I definitely will get one in the future.

But for now the amount of time and money it would take just seems like a selfish thing to do.

I absolutely love having ponies and horses though, all the fiddling about and poo picking and feet picking etc and now cant imagine a time I wouldn't have one.

really informative thread.....

The things i love about having my beautiful pony (sugar) are:
sniffing her
riding her
grooming her
showing her off
having her
loving her
feeding her
picking out her hooves
her whinny when i arrive...
ok, EVERYTHING!!

My dd (8), said to me the weekend (bearing in mind we have only had her pony since July). 'My life is so great since we have had dpony, I just love it and Christmas holidays will be brilliant....' When I asked her what she liked best she said 'everything, but I love riding her and then going home and sitting by the fire with a hot chocolate'!

We have just come back from a holiday and she rode for the first time in nearly three weeks and said 'It is so nice to be sitting on dpony again, it feels wonderful!'

How is it going OP, is she making you happy yet?

We owned a beautiful grey mare for ten months. Absolutely loved working with her on the ground - that was all we did for the first two months as she was so hard to get a saddle to fit! High withers, short back, very very broad, etc... Yard chores were great exercise and the other liveries are still good friends.

But we sold her on to a more experienced owner in the end. I have twenty years of experience myself, DH is a total novice but a natural tbh. Still that mare was just too tough a ride once she was fit. Napping, spooking (0-60, in under three seconds ), spinning, tanking off into that speed between fast canter and full out gallop when asked for trot in the school...oh, and rearing under saddle.

That last one did it for me. I had already already had four very nasty falls from her in the space of as many months. Once I bashed my knee, once I broke my ribs, once was just scary, and once she actually went on over the top of me. But the rearing was a step too far. Tbh, I was glad to see the back of her. I did miss her, but I wouldn't ever want another like her, iyswim...

I think we will stick to trekking and lessons for a few years. If we do buy our own again, it would be something far quieter. I can ride out most nonsense, but that doesn't make it fun to do so

Hi there OP. I think in your case, I would give yourself at least 3 months before you make any big decisions with your horse. It takes at least 3 months for you and your horse to start to bond. It can be difficult to know whether any particular horse is a keeper until you have this time under your belt.

I remember when I first got my 1* schoolmaster on loan. When I first went to see him in the paddock, he wouldn't even let me walk up and pat him, as he didn't know who I was! After about 3 months, I distinctly remember bringing him up from his paddock to ride one weekend. I had just tied him up and was chatting to a friend. He turned his head to look at me and the look said "Oh, so you're my person now!" I turned to him and said "Hello Sweetheart!"

From there the bond grew and grew. Yes, there were times I just wanted to smack his little red hiney, but I would always remind myself that a bad day with my horse was better than a good day with a lot of people . I ended up loaning him for 5 years and in the end, he trusted me implicitly, and I would have trusted him with my life.

He was quite a nervous TB as he was low man on the totem pole, so was always on the look out for danger. One time, I was riding alone, under lights in the arena, and the cow and the dog next door were playing stupid chasey games while I was schooling. We had just started our canter work, and the chasey games started. I could tell from some very subtle signs that something was upsetting him, and our 'agreement' was that if something was upsetting him, he was allowed to stop and look at it once, but then it was back to business. So I stopped him just as the cow chased the dog down the fenceline, about 30m away from where we were. And all horsie did was stop and look at them , although I could feel his heart beating like a pounding drum next to my left boot. We stood there for a minute or so, while I praised and patted him for being such a good boy .

And good horses are hard to find. If the previous owner is looking for a horse, it will probably take her much more than 3 months to find something that she likes. I would just use this time to get to know you horse and figure out her personality more, and whether it meshes with yours. Then you can decide whether she is a keeper, or whether you would rather work out something that suits your situation better.

Hope this helps.