Darling has been searching for wings. Her time on Marti is over, as he's moved back to Canada with his owner. Since Sandy truly does not enjoy being air born, and since Steve Holt! is still a baby when it comes to...well, anything...we've spent the past couple of weeks looking into the care lease option.
Have you ever done a lease? Let me tell you, it is not easy! We'd like a free/care lease on a sound horse who can go over 24" jumps easily enough that Darling can just sit and concentrate on herself, not the horse. After all, it's difficult to get into a good two point position when you're struggling to get the horse to face the jump.
So far we've seen two lame horses (they've never been lame a day in their life...uh huh...), one who was supposed to be suitable for beginners that tried to run off (hello...leasing a horse? Try riding it more than once a month before marketing to beginning riders), one who we were told hadn't been jumped in a few years who turned out not to have been ridden in three years, and one who backed out of the verbal agreement once the lease contract came out.
How will I ever steal my pony back if I can't find wings that work for Darling???
Have you ever done a lease? Let me tell you, it is not easy! We'd like a free/care lease on a sound horse who can go over 24" jumps easily enough that Darling can just sit and concentrate on herself, not the horse. After all, it's difficult to get into a good two point position when you're struggling to get the horse to face the jump.
So far we've seen two lame horses (they've never been lame a day in their life...uh huh...), one who was supposed to be suitable for beginners that tried to run off (hello...leasing a horse? Try riding it more than once a month before marketing to beginning riders), one who we were told hadn't been jumped in a few years who turned out not to have been ridden in three years, and one who backed out of the verbal agreement once the lease contract came out.
How will I ever steal my pony back if I can't find wings that work for Darling???
3 comments:
Keep looking, don't give up!
The horse I had before Cody, Taffy, was a horse I leased for 6 or 7 years. She was a horse who liked to jump but had no formal training. Took us a few ups and downs to get things figured out, be with regular lessons, we ended up kind of learning the jumping side of things together.
Usually a good resource is Pony club, if someone has moved on to a new horse because of going for higher ratings, or has gone off to college. If Whatcom pony club doesn't have any ideas for you, you might try contacting the Skagit Valley Pony Club also.
We leased before we bought and it worked out quite well - taught us all the things we did NOT want in a horse! But you have way more experience than we did so it's very different for you and Darling.
Keep looking, something will come up. So many horses come up for sale after Christmas when those first year college students figure out that they only came home twice all semester to ride their horse and its just not fair to having him sitting around when he has so much potential. Many of those kids would much rather do a lease to give themselves more time to make that hard decision to sell.
Leasing is how my sister bought her boy. My trainer had her husbands horse that he wasn't riding, so she leased him to my sis, which eventually turned into a care lease, than she bought him. It worked out really well. Although I did know the horse, and who he was owned by, made it so much easier. I think it is alot harder when dealing with people and horses you don't know.
Good luck, Darling looks great with her wings!
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