Would you like to buy a 'made' horse...

I would love to have one to run along side my youngster. I think I could learn so much from a more experienced horse. It would be nice to focus on my position over a fence, without the horse throwing crazy shapes!
My friend got an older mare on loan who had been there, done that, but had been blasted round small courses in recent years. Her plan was to have her for a year and then get something a bit younger to continue on. After a year she was having a ball and 6 months later she bought her for £1000 including all tack and rugs. She has now had her for 3 years and is still loving it and learning lots. Yes she is older and doesn't have many years left competing, but she has been more than worth it.
 
HotToTrot said:
Secondly, by the time you get to the desired level, it is without a doubt cheaper to do it on a made horse. I was at my desired level (Int) within two months of purchase (having spent two months' running costs). If I'd bought a youngster, I'd have had more like a few years' running costs before I could have gone Int. So financially speaking, I think you get more bang for your buck if you can get straight on and go.
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Then the next aspect is very personal and you may only know the answer in hindsight. What do you want? I wasn't totally sure when I got Parrot, but my God, it's by far the best decision that I could possibly have made, by a long way. I've done stuff that I never thought I would do and I have had the time of my absolute life. I owe most of that to my fantastic, super, ready-made horse. This would not have been possible in the time frame with a younger horse and it may not have been possible at all with a younger one, due to the uncertainty I described above. It may be a once in a lifetime experience. So here's to ready made horses!!
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yep, all very good points... never thought of it like that, probably because it would make me wish for things I'll never have! perhaps I will buy that lottery ticket after all!

Auslander said:
Mine uses his repertoire of party tricks as an evasion. Quite possibly the funniest Alf related thing I have ever seen was a friend of mine, who is extremely competent, getting stuck in passage. She hadn't asked for it, she wasn't even giving him the correct aid for it. He just decided that that was what he wanted to do, and she couldn't do a thing about it!
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hehe, been there on a certain grey chap - humiliating, frustrating and hilarious at the same time :lol:

HashRouge said:
I do hanker after buying a horse produced by my former boss...I spent the summer having lessons on 2 of his 5 year olds and they were wonderful! I suppose at 5 they aren't fully produced yet, but they'd both been so well started that they were a joy to ride. I think I would, if I ever had the money, buy something like that - professionally started and produced, but not completely "made".
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yes I think that would be my absolute ideal as well, something at the start of its education but with a solid grounding. Sounds lovely :)
 
spacefaer said:
I remember riding Welton Louis when he was at Talland and as an evasion, he would either throw in one time changes, or passage.... and you couldn't stop him at all - you'd be passaging round the arena, getting yelled at by Adam Kemp, and you were a complete passenger!
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I remember him doing that too. Ultimate schoolmaster, that boy!
 
I learned to ride piaffe on a funny little grey stallion in Germany. He was classically trained, and knew all the high school moves, so you had to be VERY very careful where you put your legs!
If you were too heavy handed in piaffe, he used to sit more and more and more behind, until he actually sat down. I fell off him backwards twice before I cottoned on!
 
Just goes to show any horse can be trained - I first rode piaffe on a palomino Welsh Cob x that the daughter of my then employer had taught all the GP moves when her sone outgrew him - she did it to prove a point and to give him a purpose after he had been hit by a milk float on the road, and couldn't hunt or jump any more. He was a proper schoolmaster - if you didn't ask him right, you didn't get!

Mind you, she was the daughter of Lorna Johnstone - old school dressage (google is your friend if you haven't heard of her!)
 
I got bought a ready made warmblood mare when I was 15 and couldn't ride one side of her. She'd come from a semi-professional who was a very good rider and we just couldn't get on.

I now have a 14.2 homebred who is doing everything and more, but I do realise it's taken us 3 or 4 years to get to this stage. I also have a 2 year old colt in the field who I'm excited to get started on. However, I think it'll be a lot easier this time to have an older horse alongside the younger one as youngsters can be disheartening at times, so it'll be nice to look at Ruby and be reassured that we will eventually get there. The 2 year old was a bit of an impulse buy, he's a real quality horse who we bought as a weanling and I wouldn't have the budget for him as a 4 year old, but we have had the cost of the last few years and the risk of injury, or him being a turd under saddle!

I think you can get a lot more for your money in terms of horse power if you buy young, but you then have the costs of keeping them until they're ready to break, and a lot of sweat and tears to get them up to a standard you may like. Which if you added up may be more! But I enjoy the training process and the milestones and having a horse I know 100%. I'd probably always go for something a bit greener.
 
So for flat I love to have blanc canvas to work with and buy ld it up myself. Jumping is diffenent as I lack confidence jumping so a schoolmaster is what I need.
That is was I got with my current mare. Did Discovery BSJA but only a couple of unaffilaited prelims.
She has given me loads of confidence SJ and takes me round BN (which is plenty for me) happily. We have in 18 months gone from our BD intro to winning at BD medium and gives me lots of satisfaction that I had a hand in that!
 
N N was my hero, when I feel a bit creaky I think of her riding almost to the end. When she had a new very high mounting block with a handrail so she could mount more safely, it scared the life out of my horse, who didn't want to near it. I use that mounting block regularly and often think of her!
spacefaer said:
Just goes to show any horse can be trained - I first rode piaffe on a palomino Welsh Cob x that the daughter of my then employer had taught all the GP moves when her sone outgrew him - she did it to prove a point and to give him a purpose after he had been hit by a milk float on the road, and couldn't hunt or jump any more. He was a proper schoolmaster - if you didn't ask him right, you didn't get!

Mind you, she was the daughter of Lorna Johnstone - old school dressage (google is your friend if you haven't heard of her!)
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Oldie48 - they were an astonishingly tough pair of women. I was in awe of MrsJ - who in their right mind buys themselves a new 4 yr old for their 83rd birthday?

And NN just terrified me for years! It was a long time before I discovered how kind she was.
 
Indeed, they were tough, we don't make them like that anymore. NN was talented in lots of ways that I knew nothing of until her funeral, she was very talented musically and was the ladies fly fishing champion at some point. I never knew Mrs J but as I got to know NN better I realised her bark was much worse than her bite!
spacefaer said:
Oldie48 - they were an astonishingly tough pair of women. I was in awe of MrsJ - who in their right mind buys themselves a new 4 yr old for their 83rd birthday?

And NN just terrified me for years! It was a long time before I discovered how kind she was.
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Personally, I like made animals now - I'm getting older, I have two children, a house, a husband and his business to look after, I don't have the time to bring horses on anymore and I just want to have a bit of fun. Because I've never had a big buying budget I've had to settle for older horses and I offer them they ideal home as due to my lack of time they don't have to work that hard! Yes, it is nice to have something young and unspoilt (older animals definitely come with their quirks and can be harder to ride than one that's been trained 'your' way) but at this point in my life I simply don't have the time.

Young riders - I think it does them good to start out on something that knows what it's doing, I have seen some parents go out and buy something young for their teens only to see it end in tears.
 
Nancy Nash, daughter of Lorna Johnstone who competed in dressage at 3 Olympics. She was 70 at the last. Nancy died a couple of years ago aged 80 but was still riding, I didn't know her mother but she also continued riding into her 80's. However, on the subject of older riders, I had a lesson with Charlie Hutton and he told me his grandmother, Molly Sievewright was still riding at 90! She needed help getting on and off though. So inspirational!
Micropony said:
Who is this NN? Sounds like role model material to me!
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I would not want a "made MADE" horse, you know all the bells and whistles. What I wanted when I went out, was to buy a horse that was established in three paces and good to hack, so "made" in that way. Up to now iv'e done my own. I of course didn't buy that and I have found a great deal of pleasure in starting to build Kevin into the sort of horse I want. However it hasn't totally been without incident and I have recently found that I do still bounce but overall I have enjoyed bringing Kev on. I also like the fact he is a heavy and I enjoy doing dressage (low level of course) on an unusual horse. Its a challenge.
 
I much prefer something broken. I have broken a few in and helped with several others, but it's so much easier if you're confident that they are going to take to the job be that ridden or driven. I don't ride at a very high level so a 'made' horse for me is a horse that's established in basics for someone else :o
 
oldie48 said:
Nancy Nash, daughter of Lorna Johnstone who competed in dressage at 3 Olympics. She was 70 at the last. Nancy died a couple of years ago aged 80 but was still riding, I didn't know her mother but she also continued riding into her 80's. However, on the subject of older riders, I had a lesson with Charlie Hutton and he told me his grandmother, Molly Sievewright was still riding at 90! She needed help getting on and off though. So inspirational!
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Lorna Johnstone was still having lessons in her early 80s from her longterm trainer. They used to concentrate on circles at one end of the school, because if she went to the far end, he couldn't see her and she couldn't hear him.

I had lessons from Mrs Sivewright - very old school but brilliant.
 
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