FestiveFuzz
Well-Known Member
So with my current horse about to be turned away for a year or so in the hope it'll help her tendon heal, I am now left with the dilemma of what to fill her stable with.
Realistically no matter how well she recovers, she's never going to reach the level I had hoped she would. At the moment this isn't really an issue as I'm not at that level either, but long term we may reach a point where I want to go further than she's physically capable of. Therefore I'm not totally against the idea of buying another, however right now I have a limited budget (£2.5k) so if I go down the route of buying another it's either buying a project now, or hoping I can save some money once Pops is no longer on full livery and using that to top up my horse fund and then buying another dressage prospect. The other option would be to look for something that may be dropping down the levels so I can fully focus on bringing my riding on and OH could potter about on when Pops comes back into work but I know from my original horse search that these rarely come without some form of issue either behavioural or veterinary.
More preferable would be to look to take something on full loan, although I suspect what I'd want in an ideal world would realistically be like looking for rocking horse poop! Again I'm torn between taking on something younger/greener so that I can gain more experience of bringing on youngsters with a view to then using that experience once Pops is back in work. I suspect this would be easier to find, but then I'm going to put all that blood, sweat and tears into someone else's horse only to hand it back in a year to 18 months assuming they don't take it back beforehand. The other option is to see if I can find a schoolmaster type that can teach me the ropes at higher level dressage and to continue really working on myself as a rider and learning all I can but I suspect this sort will be nigh on impossible to find as they most likely go by word of mouth.
So in my shoes what would you do and have I missed anything? Sharing isn't really an option as I would like to keep both horses at the same yard so I can still see Pops most days, plus I'm really missing having something to work with every day.
It's still early days so I'm not in any rush to find anything, but figured it might make me feel better to start putting some feelers out and see what my options might be.
Realistically no matter how well she recovers, she's never going to reach the level I had hoped she would. At the moment this isn't really an issue as I'm not at that level either, but long term we may reach a point where I want to go further than she's physically capable of. Therefore I'm not totally against the idea of buying another, however right now I have a limited budget (£2.5k) so if I go down the route of buying another it's either buying a project now, or hoping I can save some money once Pops is no longer on full livery and using that to top up my horse fund and then buying another dressage prospect. The other option would be to look for something that may be dropping down the levels so I can fully focus on bringing my riding on and OH could potter about on when Pops comes back into work but I know from my original horse search that these rarely come without some form of issue either behavioural or veterinary.
More preferable would be to look to take something on full loan, although I suspect what I'd want in an ideal world would realistically be like looking for rocking horse poop! Again I'm torn between taking on something younger/greener so that I can gain more experience of bringing on youngsters with a view to then using that experience once Pops is back in work. I suspect this would be easier to find, but then I'm going to put all that blood, sweat and tears into someone else's horse only to hand it back in a year to 18 months assuming they don't take it back beforehand. The other option is to see if I can find a schoolmaster type that can teach me the ropes at higher level dressage and to continue really working on myself as a rider and learning all I can but I suspect this sort will be nigh on impossible to find as they most likely go by word of mouth.
So in my shoes what would you do and have I missed anything? Sharing isn't really an option as I would like to keep both horses at the same yard so I can still see Pops most days, plus I'm really missing having something to work with every day.
It's still early days so I'm not in any rush to find anything, but figured it might make me feel better to start putting some feelers out and see what my options might be.