The 'I'd like another horse' stage

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starry94

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I'm starting to think my horse will never be a good riding horse, he has had a complicated past and now i've started working with him more i'm starting to wonder if he will ever actually improve.
i posted a while ago about finding the motivation to ride, which i have done (sort of) and have ridden him more, but he is tense all the time and feels like a ticking bomb. i don't want to keep riding him if he isn't going to become more confident, but i couldn't bring myself to sell/ loan him.

i'm going through another stage of wanting a second horse, one that is less 'complicated', anyone else go through these stages?! I can't afford to get a second (either buy or loan) and there's no space at my yard anyway, but that doesn't stop me from looking!
 
I almost, almost did. Mum was trying to convince me to give up on Ned (before he was given to me) and just get something less complex.
In the dead of night, sleepless and silent, I did think "Is he REALLY worth it?" but perhaps he knew, because after that point he's been improving vastly.
It took me nearly 3 years from start to now with Neddy. I did have a few years previous before I actually started attempting to make him better!

I still do look almost every day though :P like you, I can't afford two and there isn't space!

Good luck, I hope everything works out ok :)
 
Yes, I've had this in the past, but the unsuitable horses went and I got more suitable ones. :cool: Collecting horses is a slippery slope into bankruptcy, lol.

If your horse has some stuff going for him and isn't old, selling really can be the best move for everyone's sake's, don't just stay stuck with him because you care for him if the partnership isn't working out.
 
Having done it, I'm at the 'I'd like one less horse' stage.

Well, not really, but. Sometimes. Maybe.

I've had 2 horses for about the last 4 years (always my one lovely boy, and two other youngsters while he was lame, and more recently he is semi-retired). Before that I was strictly a one-horse person, mostly for financial reasons.

I'd like to go back to one, really, because I am a monogamous personality (I really mean this - I can't focus on two horses at once). But while I love my old boy and couldn't sell him, I do still have ambition and don't want to be waiting for him to die before I get another horse. So I have two but... at heart, I am a one-horse person.
 
If I start feeling like that I toddle off for a hack and she reminds me that she is worth her weight in gold. She can be a tit occasionally but she is a total legend hacking and never puts a foot wrong. I totally could not afford to buy another horse as rock solid as she is.

If we got to a point where my ambition and her ability didn't match (which is unlikely) then I would either need to geta second horse so DH and I have one each or take up something she can do. But so far she is meeting every challenge set and proving worth the gamble.
 
I think I've probably replied to a post of yours before! I have had my mare 13 yrs now, and I would say until I moved yards 5 yrs ago I never really enjoyed more than about 10 rides on her! she was a massive stress head, I was in a busy villiage! she is an older horse, got her at 16 and I retired her for a couple of years, but she was too much like hard work to ride! she became too dangerous, turning her bum in front of cars in the village, jogging everywhere side ways! biting her own tongue, where she had wound herself up so much!

because of a horrible livery I ended up moving yards and she seemed to mellow out so I started riding her again and she was like a different horse! still got excited when she saw other horses out but totally chilled out! still wanted to go faster than I wanted to go most of the time but didn't wind herself up so much! it defo wasn't because of her age as she still had so much go in here! but she was just much more relaxed!

so just saying, your horse might be better suit to another yard? small? with a different mix of horse? ones that don't get stressed? etc?
 
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