Your rags to riches stories...

WelshD

WelshD

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I often hear stories on here alluding to numpties that buy cheaply at auction but am sure that some are snapped up by good homes - i would imagine that some people on here will have taken a chance on a 'meat man' bound pony not knowing what it would turn out like

Any success stories?
 
My yard is nothing but 'salvage' ponies:

12'2 12yo Dartmoor stallion, given away at 15mths as his balls hadn't dropped. Super kids pony, and hunter but should really have been a dressage pony.

14' 4yo NF stallion, bought from Beaulieu as a foal for £40 (I was standing next to the meat man, and he 'let me have' this one). Quiet as a lamb, anybody's ride, and still learning.

12'3 5yo NF stallion bought with the above foal. He was the most mentally damaged pony I've ever been near, and it took 2 years to gain his trust (he lived on our lawn for 18mths). Now confident, quiet, riden by novice children, and my experienced daughter. Canters like a flying carpet.

14'1 7yo Welsh C gelding (over-height!). Bought last year, unbroken for £200 - a 'kicker', and owner couldn't do anything with him. He was riding out in 2 days, driving by the end of the week, and probably the safest thing on 4 legs (doesn't kick, but needed time to establish confidence - he's a wuss). Neurotic former owner had jumped about so badly he daren't let her behind him! Bit slow, but now he's muscling up, he's got a lovely jump in him, and boy can he step.

List goes on - all useful, sound and sane.
 
i didn't get mine from auction, but i heard he was going to be sent off with three other horses to be slaughtered, at the time i wasn't looking for anything but i knew i was going to sell my mare at the time soon(i buy horses with 'issue' and sell them after a year or two) and so i thought i'd go see him, hes an ex-racehorse and he was rubbish, but i liked him as he was quiet and i felt the other horses would find homes more easily, so he came home with me.
he was named 'Horse 2' but he is now Roo and he is the sweetest most dear horse i have ever come across and he will stay with me forever(hopefully), i no longer like having a restricted time with horses i now have saved up enough money so i don't have to so i can keep Roo forever(my dream) i've had him over a year and i've worked slowly with him as he can get a little over phased, but some may have seen the video of his first time showjumping, and we came home with two 3rds and a 5th, i couldn't be more proud of the chap!
i know he won't be doing novice eventing anytime soon which is normally what i would aim for but with him i just don't feel i need to rush i like how with him i can take things slowly and he teaches me to be patient... i really believe hes taught me more than i could have ever taught him!

if anyone knows any history of him i would love to hear it he is Roose Blox
 
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Lovely stories. How great to know how you have influenced things. That Welsh C sounds like an especially good pony.

I do hope you manage to get more information on Roo Lucinda :)

Anyone else?
 
I was on a yard where a young ex-racer owned by a complete novice caught my eye.
She was too frightened to ride him, scared to handle him properly & too stubbern to adk for help. His behaviour deteriorated & no one would touch him.
His future was looking pretty bleak so I offered her £5 for him.



On Saturday he jumped his little socks off at a XC clinic. He impressed everyone including the Olympic medalist teaching who said he was brilliant & one of the nicest most genuine horses she had seen for a long time. She also told me he was going to be very good :) he will start BE in a month or so.
He's also now a really lovely chap to have around....he just needed someone to believe in him a bit & work to keep his mind occupied. I love him :)
 
Denny is my big soft Welsh Section D he is now 8 yrs old and I purchased him at auction as an un-broken 3.5 yr old. Denny had some serious trust issues and was nervous and spooky with everything. He also had gastric problems and ulcers. Once I met him there was no way he was returning back to the dealers yard, so he came home with me at a bargain price.
He is now a wonderful horse, great to hack out, brave (most of the time) and is a super star show horse and jumper....... he does have his welsh cob moments though, but I love him to bits and he will have a home with me for the rest of his days.

And just to show him off - before aged 3.5 yrs


After aged 6


One more cause he is so handsome :O)
 
Not from an auction but from a friend.

Pony had been bought by the local riding school as the 'get one free' in a bogof deal as the dealer couldn't get rid of her so was going to go for meat.She was a stunning 12.1hh little palomino that was a nervous wreck that climbed the walls if you went anywhere near her. My friend bought her from the school & then sold her to me for £300. I had been to the sales to buy a cheap pony to bring on but hadn't found one there.

She was about 5yrs old & you couldn't put a bridle on her as she was extremely head shy due to having chunks missing out of each ear, presumably from having tags ripped out. We used to have to build the bridle around her :(

Anyway to cut a long story short, the daughter was about 8/9 at the time & we figured that the pony just needed a very quiet home & one to one caring. The daughter was the one who cared for her, she was the only one who could catch her & being a very quiet & calm person she really helped the pony to relax. She had been backed & was surprisingly easy to ride, the problems were purely on the ground.

We ended up owning her until the daughter turned 12. In that time she went from a quivering nervous wreck into a trusting pony that was not nervous one bit, although she was never a loving pony & hated being scratched & cuddled. She would tolerate being groomed everywhere except her ears & bum. The daughter qualified her & was placed at the UK riders SJ finals when she was 10, Trailblazers finals at 11 & BS Blue Chip championships at 12! She won every local SJ points championship going & was very well known in the area! She was a fantastic games pony too, provided you did everything left handed as she was a bit nervous with things on her off side.

We eventually had to sell her as the daughter wanted to move onto bigger classes & 90cm was her limit.
We sold her to the first person that came to look for £3200. She had a few years with that little girl & taught her to jump & is now living in Wales teaching another young girl. She certainly turned into a terrific school mistress & all she needed was someone she could trust :) xx
 
My horse of a lifetime came from a dealer in very, very poor condition. The yard we were at would get a few in from the dealer and keep or sell some with the rest going back to the dealer. I had a big growth spurt and had grown out of my 13.2hh within 6 months of getting him so my parents and instructor started talking of replacing him.

I was 12 when I saw this new arrival at the yard, a young, scraggy, ribby, little chestnut horse being ridden by an older boy and when he went to tighten the girth the horse panicked and ditched him. The following weekend I was told to sit on the horse "just to see how he was size wise" for me. I did so with much trepidation, walked once round the school and got off declaring that I wanted a 14.2hh like my friends. A few days later my mum picked me up from school and told me they had bought the chestnut for me :eek: I still don't know why they bought him, my dad said there was just something about him, it certainly didn't look like a sensible purchase on paper!

Anyway to cut a long story short it took some time to get condition on him and for me to get to know him - with help from my instructor. He took me through Pony Club, in all the teams but his real success was show jumping. We did our first affiliated show when I was 14 (in those days that was the youngest you could do senior classes) and were 4th in the newcomers and won the foxhunter! He went on to win much more, qualifying for HOYS and many other things, became grade A and jumped area international trials despite still being only 15hh. He truly was amazing, listened to all my teenage angst and was my best friend. He even put in an appearance at my wedding. It was heartbreaking when old age caught up with him and the time came to say goodbye - he was priceless, worth so much more than the £400 he cost
 
Not quite at auction but I think my bailey is becoming a meat man success story.
Friend just rode him for about 10 minutes down the main road and he didn't bat an eyelid. Gorgeous boy :)
 
pennyturner said:
14'1 7yo Welsh C gelding (over-height!). Bought last year, unbroken for £200 - a 'kicker', and owner couldn't do anything with him. He was riding out in 2 days, driving by the end of the week, and probably the safest thing on 4 legs (doesn't kick, but needed time to establish confidence - he's a wuss). Neurotic former owner had jumped about so badly he daren't let her behind him! Bit slow, but now he's muscling up, he's got a lovely jump in him, and boy can he step.
Click to expand...

If you want to show him just re-register him as a D.

Our first pity buy at the shetland sales was a funny dun coloured mini colt foal who was clearly being weaned at the sale - poor critter! He had good bloodlines but his colour wasn't fashionable at the time. So we bought him for 50gns. We called him Squeaky because he sounded like a dogs squeaky toy when he neighed. Just before his 1st birthday he flew out to America. Now he didn't just fly to America - oh no! He went on the same plane as the Kentucky Derby racehorses! There was one horse who wouldn't load and so they brought the shetland out to see if the horse would follow. It did but then it went nuts in it's box until the shetland was moved next door to it. So this scruffy little funny coloured 'thing' was travelling in esteemed company. Once in America his job didn't stop there. He then had to nanny 5 horses off of the plane and travel with the nutjob horse to it's training centre so it didn't injure itself on the journey. It's funny how horses attach themselves to another in scary situations.

Anywho, Squeaky's story doesn't stop there! Oh no! He went on to Florida to a P P ranch where he spent 2 years being petted by kids and was predominantly looked after at the weekends by a young girl who had been thrown against a wall as a toddler and was permanently brain damaged and in a wheelchair. Squeaky looked after her and quietly followed her in her wheelchair about the ranch carrying a small saddle bag with sandwichs in.

When he was 4yo he was removed from active service to the kids as he was still entire and plonked in a field of 20 mares in need of covering. Did he look at them? Did he heck! You could turn other stallions out and he was treated like a gelding because he behaved like one. So for the next 8 years he would spend a month out with the mares in the vein hope that he would decide he was a stallion after all and when the month was up he would travel round hospitals visiting the sick, elderly and terminally ill. Doing school trips, pulling carts, going up and down in elevators and the likes and he loved it. Squeaky went everywhere and anywhere and did everything asked of him with a smile on his face and a glint in his eye. By this stage he was now a stunning beautiful fully white shetland pony - all traces of dun gone and a far cry from what fate would have befell him had we left him in that sale pen.

At the age of 13, on his annual month out with the mares he suddenly decided he was a stallion! So he did his job, got every single mare in foal and then went back to his day job of touring the state. Never a moments bother. His first foals are now 2yo's and I am intrigued to see how they will turn out.

Squeaky started out at 50gns, travelled with a cargo of horses valued at nigh on £30million, kept them sane and has done an even greater job in bringing joy and laughter to many with not much to live for. And he isn't finished yet! Not by a long shot!

He is priceless.
 
I purchased a 'meat man' pony. I was looking for a rising 4 year old to bring on and eventually sell but I ended up with a lice ridden, wormy,skinny, rather ugly 6 month old Filly. I was her 4th home in her short life. She was so weak when she arrived that it took 3 of us to push, pull and carry her off the trailer.

This is her when she arrived, pictures don't really do justice to how 'poor' she was -








I named her Pixie and despite a bad start to life she was the most trusting pony you could imagine. From day one she tied up, allowed me to pick out her feet, brush her all over etc. Part of me thinks she was too weak to fight but the other part thinks she was just that kind of pony, loved attention even at a young age and thankfully still had trust in people.

Gradually she blossomed from an ugly ducking into a rather pretty little swan (IMO).











Sadly she didn't grow big enough for me so I sold her as a rising 4 year old last year. The first horse I have ever sold so not an easy decision to come to but I know it was the right one for her. She is now backed and in a lovely forever home. I get to see her progress on FB so know that all is well and she is happy and loved. Which is all she ever deserved.
 
Bought at auction June 2010

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Now best friend total 100% bombproof hack for me. I'm not competitive but we started flatwork lessons now. Hoping to do some bits and pieces this year as moving yards with better facilities etc
So much for selling on haha. Admittingly rock and roll relationship but hope we never have to part :)

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Well lets hope our story started today !!
We bought home my sons first horse 14.2 coloured Irish boy. he is only 5 and was sold through gorsebridge sales to a dealer in september, bought by a novice owner in December who having realised that she had overhorsed herself sold him to us for a fraction of the price.
My son bought on his NF pony from 3 years old so we are hopeing that this will be as succesful. The NF cost £500 and at only 13hh is representing the pony club at ODE, SJ,and PPC at 1m . We have been offered major money but he will never leave us, we will loan from here but love him too much
 
Squeaky has done so much for such a little pony! I feel privalidged to be a part of it, even if it was just for 6 short months.

Complimentary Squeaky pic 2 weeks before his epic adventures started!




ETA - found a pic of him a few years ago - oh how he has changed!

 
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We picked Archie up from a yard on the side of a busy main road, it had Rottweilers running about the place and the amount of pig poo was grim! We'd spoken to the dealer before going whom had told us we could have him on a 2 week trial with us, he came home with us that day. He was a scrawny little 2 year old, you could count every rib in his body, at the time I was 13 and couldn't enter a stable with a food bucket as he was so desperate and keen to see food he would nearly trample me. We had to clip him the next day to try and treat his louse infection, which had left him with big weeping sores. We ended up keeping him as we could never ever have sent back to the yard, plus we'd have been too terrified to tell the dealer we didnt want him. He is now 11, I've had him for 9 years and he'll be with me for life, he is my horse of a lifetime who is the most perfect gentleman and tries his little heart out for me. People thought we were insane at the time.....not now!
 
My friend bought a well bred 4yo nice event type horse from the sales for £900
Backed and brought on for a year and a half, went to a xc clinic with a famous eventer and came back with an empty trailer and a cheque for £10,000 :eek:
 
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