Hello,i am a newbie here.
Hope this wont be deleted this time ???? Nothing damming in here ??? is there ???
We bought a horse from a dealer(who has been long since closed down by Trading Standards)he was the last horse to leave the yard before they closed down the whole operation-to cut a very long story short we believed we were buying the sane and sensible horse we viewed over a long weekend spent trying him-how wrong we were.
I class myself as a sensible,experienced horsewoman-i have worked with horses all my life-breaking in youngsters,grooming for hunters and showjumpers and handling stallions.
We had him 5 stage vetted,from a vet many miles from the dealers yard-one i chose myself.
I soon realised the sane and sensible front that i saw had been his way of coping with the awful experiences of his past-he was actually shut down and emotionally in pieces-once he came home and was out of that environment the real issues surfaced.
The livery yard staff refused to handle him,so i moved him to a DIY yard where i could be his sole carer.My daughter didn't ride him for 8 months-i took him right back to basics,gaining his trust on the ground before i got back on board.
He has been the biggest challenge i have ever had-everyone told me i was irresponsible for thinking of keeping him,the fact that he was to be my daughters horse filled people with fear-that he was downright dangerous,and that i should realise my own limitations and think about doing the kindest thing.
The dealer had thrown away his passport which if i could have talked to previous owners in that first couple of weeks would have given me so much understanding as to why he behaved the way he did,she had given him a new passport-with no history,buy Mommy was on the case !! and after a lot of phoning and faxing,emailing and tracking back i found out he had passed through 6 homes in 7 weeks the summer we bought him,no wonder the poor little man couldnt trust anyone.Everyone told me the same story,he wasn't a horse you could trust-"i think he has a screw loose"..."God don't let your daughter get on him will you?"-"you arnt thinking of keeping him are you" ?
They we very wrong-we never gave up on the little man a Piebald Irish Cox ISH(who at a full up 15.3 is not so little any more!)we are 7 years on now from the day we brought him home-and he and my daughter have built an incredible bond over the years-it still makes me well up to see the two of them working together-and i can say hand on my heart he is the most trustworthy animal and has never gives me any cause for concern,he loves his girl and his girl loves him :)
Despite my experience,not all dealers are bad-i have known many,many people over the years who have bought from dealers and have found really lovely horses-like any business there are good and bad.
fortheloveofahorse