Kat
Well-Known Member
Take the pressure off yourself, you can't force a bond and fretting about it will make matters worse not better.
This horse doesn't have to be your next horse of a lifetime. If you don't gel you can sell and try again. But don't raise your expectations of the bond being like something out of a pony book, realistically you want a horse who makes you smile when it puts its head over the stable door, not all the fiction for preteen girls.
It is really difficult to follow an amazing horse and sometimes it is better not to try but to get a project/short term horse to have fun with to tide you over and keep you going like that until you find your special horse (which might actually be that project horse anyway). There is no shame in buying a horse and selling on, it isn't an admission of failure or letting the horse down, most of us need people to sell nice horses so that there are nice horses out there to buy. Unless they bred the horse themselves everyone's horse of a lifetime was someone else's not quite right horse or not right now horse.
Why not look at making this horse into a good citizen that can be sold on for at least as much as you paid, treat it as part hobby part job and see how you get on. If you still aren't loving the horse when you have had it six months have a look at what else you could buy if you sold up. Maybe even write an advert for your horse. Then see how you feel, see if you want to give it another six months or sell and keep going like that. You will either find that you have fallen in love with this horse or you will give yourself permission to sell and buy something else.
The other thing to think quite hard about is whether you really love doing the groundwork with a youngster or whether if you can only afford one horse you would be better getting one that you can ride straight away, it is much easier to love a horse that you are having fun riding than one that is a lot of work for very little return.
This horse doesn't have to be your next horse of a lifetime. If you don't gel you can sell and try again. But don't raise your expectations of the bond being like something out of a pony book, realistically you want a horse who makes you smile when it puts its head over the stable door, not all the fiction for preteen girls.
It is really difficult to follow an amazing horse and sometimes it is better not to try but to get a project/short term horse to have fun with to tide you over and keep you going like that until you find your special horse (which might actually be that project horse anyway). There is no shame in buying a horse and selling on, it isn't an admission of failure or letting the horse down, most of us need people to sell nice horses so that there are nice horses out there to buy. Unless they bred the horse themselves everyone's horse of a lifetime was someone else's not quite right horse or not right now horse.
Why not look at making this horse into a good citizen that can be sold on for at least as much as you paid, treat it as part hobby part job and see how you get on. If you still aren't loving the horse when you have had it six months have a look at what else you could buy if you sold up. Maybe even write an advert for your horse. Then see how you feel, see if you want to give it another six months or sell and keep going like that. You will either find that you have fallen in love with this horse or you will give yourself permission to sell and buy something else.
The other thing to think quite hard about is whether you really love doing the groundwork with a youngster or whether if you can only afford one horse you would be better getting one that you can ride straight away, it is much easier to love a horse that you are having fun riding than one that is a lot of work for very little return.
