Buying a horse with no trial facilities

[Penny Less]

You can tell Im bored today, cant keep off here !
Have just been thinking about horses Ive been and tried over the years where there was actually nowhere to test them out! Another reason I think why people end up with horses that are not suited.

One I was supposed to ride in a small totally poached field like it had been ploughed, then tried out down a lane in the middle of nowhere with no traffic at all passing.

One kept in a very elevated field where it was impossible to ride. Did try to lunge though
Actually bought this one and was the second best horse Ive ever owned.

One that the owner couldnt catch at all

None had any facility to jump!

 

[MagicMelon]

Well I bought my current horse based on a VERY cold 20 minute ride in a frozen sand school in January... I popped him over the tiniest x-pole from trot and that was it! He was a youngster though and very green so I could see he wasn't "ruined" and had a really genuine temperament - that's all I needed! Turned into a fantastic buy (he's the horse in my sig) luckily! I also bought a just backed 3yo Welsh Cob from Wales having only seen a video of him... He was fab too albeit needed a hell of a lot of manners work!

It is an issue though, I'm thinking of selling my horse but I only have a paddock to ride in and dont hack any of mine. The horse is a decent eventer & showjumper so Ill feel rather embarassed to ask them to try him in a field with only about 2 show jumps in! (I only ever jump at competitions!). Think I'll need to hire the local indoor school but then I don't feel I should have to pay the £15 rental charge each time for potential time wasters!

 

[depurple1]

This happened to me the other day - nice enough horse, but nowhere to ride him (field was on a slope and hard as concrete, plus had other horses in), or even to trot him up properly. He was only a baby so there was no way I was going to ride him on the road. A vetting would have been tricky too.

There are that many horses for sale at the moment that I'm not going to take a risk on buying one that I can't try properly. He wasn't cheap either.