You know I said I felt it was meant to be...

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Annagain

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It wasn’t :(. This must be what blind dates feel like! I walked into the yard, full of hope, took one look at him and all the butterflies vanished instantly. He was advertised as 16hh and if he was, my idea of 16hh is very flawed! He looked about 15.2 to me and if he had any Irish in him I couldn’t see it. He was very sweet and will make somebody a lovely horse but that someone isn’t me. I didn’t even sit on him. I did get on a 4 yr old they also had who wasn’t much bigger but had more bone and I felt like I was crushing him. Again, he was very sweet but too small for me. 2 years of growing and education and he’d probably have been perfect but I need a horse now!

It’s not a total waste of time, each time I see one I learn something. This reinforced a few things for me.
1. I definitely need a horse with a decent amount of bone
2. I really don’t want a 4 year old. It was like sitting on a wriggly worm.
3. If I get to the stage where I have to travel a decent distance I’m going to get very frustrated. I could cope with 1/2 an hour but 2 hours to know in 10 minutes it’s not right will be very annoying!
 
A horse being advertised at the height you want then being several inches smaller is one of the most frustrating things about looking and one that really should not happen when it is so easy to measure them, it is such a waste of everyone's time not least the vendor who will probably have a few more people walk away before someone turns up who is happy with a 15.2 or has no idea.
Viewings can be useful to give clearer guidelines but one thing that should not be difficult is to find one that is the correct height yet I bet this will not be your last wasted journey for exactly the same reason.
 
be positive said:
A horse being advertised at the height you want then being several inches smaller is one of the most frustrating things about looking and one that really should not happen when it is so easy to measure them, it is such a waste of everyone's time not least the vendor who will probably have a few more people walk away before someone turns up who is happy with a 15.2 or has no idea.
Viewings can be useful to give clearer guidelines but one thing that should not be difficult is to find one that is the correct height yet I bet this will not be your last wasted journey for exactly the same reason.
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It’s making me question my judgement. He might have been 16hh and the 3” fewer makes more of a difference than I thought it would! The height wasn’t so much of an issue as the lack of bone. When I got on the 4yr old I thought my legs were going to touch each other before they touched his sides! He felt like he had no ribcage at all!
 
Oh I am sorry Annagain. So frustrating and disappointing I know :(.
I went to see a ' bomproof , fit, pure Spanish palomino 15.2hh, 9 years old with golden/amber eyes. The photo's were amazing and he was in a top yard. £5k( ouch but ok , maybe there was some wriggle room but he was Spanish AND golden, yum)
Arrived at yard and passed a small, fat, dirty, nondescript horse stuffing it's face in a side paddock and thought , gosh, hope that's not the 5k PRE. Of course it was and he was covered in scars to boot and had horrible feet. I had traveled 3 hours to get there and it was 35 degrees. I was really disappointed but it taught me a lot about dealers. The next horse was even worse and the next one I fell off of.
One I felt so sorry for I almost bought out of pity and went away crying in the car but then I found my Shadow so I got there in the end!
So will you :)
 
I'm dreading horse searching from up here (2.5 hours from anything even resembling civilization and not a huge pool of available horses locally at all). It's not even really on the cards yet but it'll happen at some point.... I doubt there will be many short journeys and probably lots of wasted long journeys. Having said that, Beast was the first horse we viewed last time! Maybe we'll get lucky again... But if I'm going to be driving for 5 hours to view a horse I'm probably not going to be very patient if it's not as described! 😂

I'm sorry your blind date didn't work out (always have a friend phone 20 minutes in/make sure there's an exit by the loos in your chosen meeting place...) here's hoping the next one is more successful.
 
It is so frustating but it does also work the other way around. I advertised a 16.3 that a lady came and tried - twice! - then she said oh he is too big!! I got the measuring stick and he was exactly 16.3 and what is more he was the same size the first time she tried him!!!
 
what a shame was it on horsequest? 212963, he looks like my type and 15.2 would be the right height, only drawback ,he is in wales and i dont have any money and cant afford to keep him....i like daydreaming though...:)

and i got it wrong i thought you were seeing him on thursday
 
I can completely understand we’re your coming from when I was horse shopping 1 year ago I went to look a schoolmaster cob which was 14 hands. When i came to a try the horse was met with a backed 13 hand cob.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel I found the perfect mach 16 hands Irish sport horse.
 
splashgirl45 said:
what a shame was it on horsequest? 212963, he looks like my type and 15.2 would be the right height, only drawback ,he is in wales and i dont have any money and cant afford to keep him....i like daydreaming though...:)

and i got it wrong i thought you were seeing him on thursday
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Yes that’s him. Very sweet. If he was 3” bigger and 150kg heavier I’d have snapped him up.
 
By the way, some of you may have noticed the inconsistency in my other post. I’m useless at lying. I was seeing him today not tomorrow. I wrote ‘tomorrow’ (yesterday) but then forgot I’d done that and said Thursday in case I needed a bit of time to mull it over without people asking me for updates. I obviously went today!
 
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i must admit he did look lighter than i thought you said you wanted, he is a pretty boy...how about 212774 on hq, he is not in wales though or one in wales, nr cardiff 212943, only 4 though
 
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There is an epidemic of shrinking horses and ponies, I swear!

I remember the 14.2 connemara who wasn't 13.2 on his tip toes, and also the big man's hunter who was basically a 15.2 riding horse.

I've asked sellers in the past for a picture of the horse under a measuring stick on concrete or something similar, and couldn't believe the number of people who claimed not to own one!

I hope you find your horse soon.
 
splashgirl45 said:
i must admit he did look lighter than i thought you said you wanted, he is a pretty boy...how about 212774 on hq, he is not in wales though or one in wales, nr cardiff 212943, only 4 though
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I did suspect he might be but at only 1/2 an hour away he was worth a look but he looked even smaller in real life. The photo in the ad makes him look a lot bigger than he is. 212943 was the one I sat on tonight, they’re with the same seller. Both lovely horses just not for me. Give the chestnut 2 years of growing and education and he’d be just right but he’s not for me at the moment. He’s also lot of money for what he is.

As it happens I’ve just messaged about 212774, not sure if he’s a bit long in the back though?
 
Bugger :(
I'm 6ft 11 so horses pretty much always look smaller to me lol but some of the ones I've been to see were ridiculous. One was advertised as 16.3 and I shit you not he just scraped 15.2 on the stick 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
 
That's such a shame. I'd naively thought a dealer might be more accurate in basic things like height!
I can't quite remember your original requirements (16hh plus must be a non grey gelding all rounder type not too far from south central Wales?)
All of them seem to be grey or the wrong end of the country for you.
I did find this one but the advert isnt overly detailed nor are pics great but he looked like he could suit?
https://classifieds.horseandhound.co.uk/horses-for-sale/all-rounder/ish-gelding-dorset-514403
 
chaps89 said:
That's such a shame. I'd naively thought a dealer might be more accurate in basic things like height!
I can't quite remember your original requirements (16hh plus must be a non grey gelding all rounder type not too far from south central Wales?)
All of them seem to be grey or the wrong end of the country for you.
I did find this one but the advert isnt overly detailed nor are pics great but he looked like he could suit?
https://classifieds.horseandhound.co.uk/horses-for-sale/all-rounder/ish-gelding-dorset-514403
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He’s on my list! I’m a bit worried he might be too small too though. I don’t mind taking a risk on one 1/2 an hour away but 2 1/2 hrs is a long way. It’s so hard to judge from photos.
 
annagain said:
It’s making me question my judgement. He might have been 16hh and the 3” fewer makes more of a difference than I thought it would! The height wasn’t so much of an issue as the lack of bone. When I got on the 4yr old I thought my legs were going to touch each other before they touched his sides! He felt like he had no ribcage at all!
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See, I've got a mare who looks really substantial and I bought at 16hh. Turns out she's measured in comfortably at 15.2, yet is a big girl and my long legs are taken up nicely. They are out there.
 
So sorry to hear that. When I was searching I found that everything that I liked on HQ was a long way away (4-8 hours drive), so I asked for videos and asked for details of height/clothing size for the riders so that I could assess size. When I explained it was as I only wanted to make the trip if I was confident that the horse would suit me, all the sellers I dealt with were very helpful and sent lots of info and videos. With my instructors help I saved myself many trips to see what sounded perfect, but didn't quite match up to what I needed. Not sure why it always seems that the ones that suit you are further away though... Good luck with the search - you will find 'the one'.
 
McFluff said:
So sorry to hear that. When I was searching I found that everything that I liked on HQ was a long way away (4-8 hours drive), so I asked for videos and asked for details of height/clothing size for the riders so that I could assess size. When I explained it was as I only wanted to make the trip if I was confident that the horse would suit me, all the sellers I dealt with were very helpful and sent lots of info and videos. With my instructors help I saved myself many trips to see what sounded perfect, but didn't quite match up to what I needed. Not sure why it always seems that the ones that suit you are further away though... Good luck with the search - you will find 'the one'.
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Thanks - yes I would be more careful with ones further away but he was only 1/2 an hour away. I'm definitely going to ask for a photo of them with a measuring stick now! Bone is a bit more difficult to assess from photos I might ask them to measure that too.
 
cundlegreen said:
See, I've got a mare who looks really substantial and I bought at 16hh. Turns out she's measured in comfortably at 15.2, yet is a big girl and my long legs are taken up nicely. They are out there.
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Would you mind sending me a photo please? I need to work on getting my eye in on photos a bit as I actually thought they'd undermeasured him from the photo! I can pm you my number if you want to what's app it to me
 
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