Anyone else bring on "damaged goods" horses?

Molly'sMama

Molly'sMama

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Just wondering who else on her has/has had horse that had bad pasts ?
Molly was bought for £4000 (!!! - but he is massively rich so no pity :P ) as a 5yo driving pony but discovered to be a 3 1/2 yo pony terrified of people who went mental when tried to be attached to cart -understandably. Took YM 10months before she was trusted enough to start to back her. Shes still wary of whips -like carrying one is enough to make her go from ploddy to squeeze, trot , squeeze canter,which ,2 1/2 years later makes you think " WTF Did they do to her!!??!
But shes a sweet ,beautiful thing , who follows me around without a headcollar, without doing join up , despite what people think. Shes honest, and lovely and mature for a 6 year old.She makes me laugh ,cry and everything in between. Everyday she surprises me. She has a gorge jump for a 13.3 cob and has gotten a rosette in 4 out of 5 classes ive been in .
So just intriguied(sp) what others experiences were? Sorry if its turned into a "I worship molly " post!! :D :D i do. :D
A xxxxx

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My friend bought a palomino pony for peanuts to save it from the meat man. She was apparently unhandleable. Her daughter was way to big so I bought it off her for £300. After 3 yrs hard work mainly by my then 10yr old daughter she was an unbeatable games pony, won everything at pc & qualified for trailblazers & UK riders finals jumping (got placed twice there!) The daughter eventually got too big so we sold her on for £3200! Was a massive learning experience for the daughter & 3 yrs after selling her we still keep in touch with her new owners xx
 
My pony was beaten by his first owners and many years later he still has some issues. His main problems seem to be unknown men. Sharp movements around is head and Occasionally his girth (he was punched in the stomach to breathe in while saddled!). I found that if you are calm and persevere with them they soon start to trust you and the rewards can be huge! He has been with my family for over 13 years now and he will stay with us untill he dies! He has occasionally gone on loan but he never seems as relaxed as when he is with us! lol I wish you two all the best! x
 
One of ours was badly treated, Were even led to believe he's been hit on the head with a shuvel(!!!) When we first got him, we couldn't get near him with a brush, He has come on a long way in around a year and has just started to jump again! He can be quite spooky but with lots of TLC he's come on along way
 
My lad (in my sig) was pretty messed up when I got him as a 4yo. Unsure what happened but he was bought from Stow May '02 for a lot of money in the ring, went through 3 homes in 3 months then I got him. He was a bag of nerves and would panic and take off a lot. The remnants will always be there with him but have to say I wasn't the most experienced but we got there, it's true what they say and horses do live in the present, not the past. Well done with yours and I do always think that once you've gained the trust of a horse who's had his trust badly abused in the past, he'll walk through fire with you, it's an exceptional and beautiful bond xxx
 
Horses are by and large very forgiving so you do wonder what people manage to do to them don't you?

I have a great oaf of a horse who was a mess when he arrived. He has such a great temperament I don't know how anyone could have turned him into a gibbering wreck.

The first time I turned the clippers on (miles away from him) he ran to the back of his stable and crouched down mouthing at me like a foal. As soon as I said his name he 'came to' and rushed to see what I was doing. He wasn't the least bit afraid of being clipped, but the sound of the clippers sure triggered some memory somewhere.

Even now 7 years later if strangers come into the field with me he gets agitated, he used to run away but now puts himself in between me and the people. So again, something somewhere :(
 
Well done with Molly she sounds like a fab pony and was so lucky to find you. :)
I do.

Lucys story is here.

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=373541

And now I have Herbie was I bought for £550 inclu all tack and rugs. He was 8 when I got him and he had had 6 owners already :( He was a stallion till he was 7 and they did parelli with him in his last home :(
He was so messed up. He was agressive and nasty. He was unridable and it took over an hour to get one circle of trot on one rein on the lunge. When I did try to ride him he would just rear, buck, leap and spin to get his own way. :( Everyone told me to give up on him and send him to the sales and hope the meat man bought him.
Heres a little video I made for him the other day.

[youtube]anJD7BPzC20[/youtube]

and on Sun we did our second dressage test and won :D:D He was so worth it.
 
I bought my now 20yo "nut job" as I like to call him as a 6yo. He was brought over from Ireland as a 2yo and beaten on the ferry as he went mad being on there. Other than that, all we know about him is he was hunted in Ireland as a 2yo and that we were his 7th owners between the ages of 2 and 6 as he was "unrideable" as he used to rear, spin and bolt the minute you got on him and if you stayed on, he used to bolt in open spaces (On the roads for some reason he was/is bomb proof in the most heavy of traffic). He refused to go in a stable as he had been attacked with pitchforks (and still has the scars under his stomach). He was totally whip shy. Anyways, getting back to the point, he has now been 13 differnt National Championships for both PC and RC in all disiplines but mostly horse trials and still loves to compete. Don't get me wrong, he does have his "moments" still but I could not ask for a kinder, more loving horse who will do his best to look after me no matter if it is just a hack in the forest or on a cross country course - and he now happily goes into his stable and will lay down and curl his head around you if you sit down with him! :)
 
I don't know much about mine but something's definitely gone on with him! He is 14.2hh and I bought him when he was 8 as I needed a jumping pony which he was advertised as. The lad I got him from had done quite a lot but had really outgrown him. He was very scared in the stable and they said you couldn't tie him up or touch his ears or anything. Anyway, long story short i bought him although wasn't keen on him to be honest. He came with a video from one of his first owners jumping him BSJA at NC level. I later calculated he can't have been much more than 5yo at the time. He was/is a very panicky soul and we found out he'd been through a dealers and a sales and ended up at a yard not far from us (Otley) and one time and they said how he just hid at the back of his stable the majority of the time. They then (I think) sold him to the lad I bought him from so he had had at least 4 'homes' within a pretty short space of time. He couldn't tie up, would not walk in to a stable if there was no straw dow, would never come near the stable door. Although he would load fine he would through himself out of the wagon (from the top of the ramp) and he'd panic coming out of a front unload trailer (we had to reverse him out). Essentially, he was scared of any narrow spaces. He has a line of white hair on his bottom lip and on one of his legs so i do wonder if he's had an accident somewhere along the lines.

It's frustrating in some ways to not know his full background but 17 years later I still have him! His jumping was always too erratic and unreliable (if you could get him to start a course you were ok!) and we have never cured his fear of trotting poles but in the main he's 100 times better than he was when we got him and pretty relaxed the majority of the time. He still has his moments though and he doesn't forget ANYTHING!!!
 
My boy was another one brought over from Ireland - according to the dealers yard that is the first named owner on his pet-id passport. He had many issues when I got him home last year. If I went into his stable to muck out & he was in there he would run & hide in the corner of his stable..(like I can't see a 16'1 'hiding' in a corner!) When I first lunged him I never needed to used the lunge whip at all but one night I accidently brushed him with it while we were exiting the menage & he literally went to pieces. The most major thing is that he has a scarred corner of his mouth that looks as though his mouth has been torn, one day I tacked up in the stable & as we went to walk out he went to rush & I grabbed his reins, he ran backwards into his stable & collapsed on the floor in shock! When I later had the dentist out to look at him we found that the scar is all inside his mouth & is on both sides so he reckons at some point someone has put a lead rope maybe even with the metal clip in his mouth like a bit which is obviously why he freaked in the stable...But a year on & I have a horse who is not fearful of me in any way infact he's changed into a right cheeky git..with a lovely personality! I don't think there's anything more rewarding than owning a horse with previous issues & watching them come through it!!
 
Aww , its so nice to read about all your storys -
Laurawheeler , that was so lovely , i was blurry at the end! She was so lucky to have you Xx Did you do join up with Herbie or is it just your bond that made him follow you ? Molly does that , without doing any " natural horsemanship" and it makes me tear up everytime.They are so trusting :D How people can do things to them without any guilt .... :L:

Taking molly to a pc rally tomorrow so pretty nervous as she likes to go a bit "cheeky" - as in running around , and throwing her legs around, running out on jumps,throwing me off etc :P
Will post if I survive :D Xxx
 
Thankyou Molly'smama Lucy was a very special little lady.
Herbie just follows me round due to our bond. I don't do "natural horsemanship" I just spend time with my ponies to build a bond and treat each horse as an indervidual. :)
I to cried when Herbie started following me round. I'm glad I had my camera out that day as it was the first time he followed me in trot. Normaly he just walked after me even if I ran he would keep walking and cathch up eventualy :rolleyes:
Good luck at the rally tom I'm shore you'll have a fab time. :D
 
Well we don't know much about Bella's past, but you can tell that she has had a bad time. She came over from ireland last march, very green and had just come back into work after just having a foal, was quite nervous but loved to work and was a sweetheart. We bought her in the may and she is a changed horse. When we got her she was very nervous of the whip and was very protective of herself but is getting better but if another horse kicks/bites her etc she will fight back, but that's just the way she knows how to protect herself. She's one in a million, and she wasn't as bad a some of the ones on this post but she's taken a lot of work, but i'm so proud of her, she's a little star :)

Oh and laura, I love Herbie, although you know that, you've done so well with both him and what you did for Lucy :)
 
Captain was a nightmare when we bought him. He had been abused, physically and mentally, and starved, although most definitely not by the person we bought him from. He was still very thin and very, very aggressive. But Elizabeth and I could see the "real" him inside. By the time I had had a chat with the seller Elizabeth had him eating out of her hand and doing join up. ( Which was a change from him trying to eat his grooms!)


It used to take 4 people to lead him down the yard and he would rear and kick out all the time, he is 17-3hh and very good at trying to intimidate people; looking down his nose, with his head nearly 7ft in the air! He used to put the fear of god into his grooms, but now he is very good in his stable. However, he is a tinker, he will intimidate if given the opportunity but you just have to be firm and he always needs to understand who is boss. I think he was so big he was allowed to get away with murder and because he had no trust he was quick to seek the advantage.

It took a long time of very patient and quiet time before he would let me touch his face, he was a nightmare to tack up, taking half an hour to get his bridle on; now he is a sweet heart.

He is an exceedingly sharp and sensitive horse to ride, preferring only to be ridden by Elizabeth. He gives a very hard ride to anyone else. He is fantastic for Elizabeth though, we put up with it because he is older, if he were young it would be another issue that would have to be sorted.

He is a perfect gentleman on the ground now, gentle and kind, if he knows you. He is extremely wary about strangers, and will still strike before being hit (in his view ).

He is so loving, gentle and sweet. I am so glad we bought him. He will never be 100% trustful again, he will still occasionally flinch when someone he knows moves to close to his head too quickly.But he is so much better than he used to be.

It is heartbreaking to know that humans have caused his problems, and that he feels so distrustful of people he doesn't know.

FDC
 
I brought 2 mares as 3 year olds, both broken, my god the fear and shaking going on when tack was taken near them sent the fear of god into me at what had happened in their past also they were terrified of people, so hence i brought the daft mares (both 16'3" out houses). they were herded loose on to a trailer with the partition taken out and delivered to me loose, so had to herd them into seperate stables.
I spent a year just cuddling and pampering and grooming them.
Now 1 is just the bigget people person and loves anything that involves people and i have had lovely rides out with her 100% bombproof on the roads and thinks hunting is just fab.
The other one well she is still very wary of people but when caught will do anything in hand, tacking up can still be a prob and normally takes 3 attempts with the saddle, also getting on can be a issue, when on perfect till its time to move, once that is over and we are moving we have a lovely ride. Still more work to be done with her, but she is lovely and i would part with the money all over again for both of them as they have a real chance in life now.
 
Thats a really nice video of Laura and Herbie I know that you say you don't 'do' natural horsemanship, but whether you like it or not, I'd say you were a 'natural horsewoman'. Some people have got it, and some haven't, a lot of people would like to have it though.

We do have people come to us with horses that have a 'problem or two' and we are normally the last port of call when everything else has been tried. The horses are easy, it's the people that are the hard ones.

If you could bottle what Laura has it's worth a fortune.
 
Some lovely stories on here. Are all the changed horses the ones in your signitures? If not I'd love to see some pics.. X
 
Molly'sMama said:
Molly was bought for £4000 (!!! - but he is massively rich so no pity :P ) as a 5yo driving pony but discovered to be a 3 1/2 yo pony terrified of people who went mental when tried to be attached to cart -understandably. Took YM 10months before she was trusted enough to start to back her. Shes still wary of whips -like carrying one is enough to make her go from ploddy to squeeze, trot , squeeze canter,which ,2 1/2 years later makes you think " WTF Did they do to her!!??!
But shes a sweet ,beautiful thing , who follows me around without a headcollar, without doing join up , despite what people think. Shes honest, and lovely and mature for a 6 year old.She makes me laugh ,cry and everything in between. Everyday she surprises me. She has a gorge jump for a 13.3 cob and has gotten a rosette in 4 out of 5 classes ive been in .
So just intriguied(sp) what others experiences were? Sorry if its turned into a "I worship molly " post!! :D :D i do. :D
A xxxxx

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Whoa this is so wierd bu your horse sounds exactly like mine and they even have the same name!!! How wierd is that? My Molly was 6 when I got her and a nut, unbeknownst to me. We have had rough times but now she trusts me and I'm working on her with other people. 4 1/2 years and we can finally take riding lessons! (Believe me, my riding position definitely needs some work...) I love the ones who have no one until you come along :) They end up being the best friends you can have
 
I picked Todd up 1 year ago, he was due to be shot, unwanted by his owner, was a hunter/eventer in his younger years, but had an accident and injured his shoulder. Owner didn't follow vets advice to keep him on box rest for a while and threw him out in field, he never came sound again. Was used as a happy hack after that, when I got him, he was skinny, hairy and looked about 30! (Actually a 17.2hh Hanoverian by Demokraat!) He is finally starting to look better, still not 100% sound, but happy as larry, goes out for the occasional plod. I really have a bond with him, I got him after being fired, having a breakdown at the age of 19, and going through *****, I'm still not out the otherside yet, but probably wouldn't be here, if I didn't need to be for my herd.
 
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