Where Do People Find Their Horses? - The 10-Minute Tack-Up

0:00You are listening to the Horse Radio Network, part of the Equine Network family. Hi, I'm Alex Bextet, and I'm Jillian Evelyn. Thanks for joining us on the 10-minute tack-up brought to you by my new horse. We're going to sit down for a quick honest chat about all things horse ownership. And today, we're going to be talking about where people shop for and find their horses, because there are a lot of options out there. And I'm just going to kick it off with one of my favorites, and that is online shopping. Online shopping? You go down that rabbit hole of hours and hours of horses that you can't afford and don't need. No. It's fabulous.

1:00Never stops. So yeah, you've got your websites like dreamhorse.com, equine.com. You've got some really good, usually discipline-specific Facebook groups where people are offering their horses for sale. One of my favorites to follow is Big Eck, because I'm a hunter-jumper girly, and they have a fantastic Instagram account. And I will just sit there and scroll through videos and photos of beautiful horses that I can't have. Yeah. Yeah, it's like you can pick your price range. And I'm like, what about like the cheapest? And I'm like, okay, there's nothing available. Great. Or it's like one-year-old. It's like a year-length. And they're like, there you go. Oh, I don't want that for the price I cannot afford. Yeah. So yeah, I would say pros of online shopping. You can easily filter through tons of prospects all over the country. Cons, you've really got to do your research, I think, because sellers might not be fully transparent.

2:02They might embellish a few things. So yeah. Kind of going off our last episode too, about like things we kind of wish we knew. Yeah. Kind of goes hand in hand. Like when you're looking at these sale ads, they're going to put all the best stuff in it. Kind of like a new unicorn. Wait, Alex, when you got your horse, how did you go about it? Did you do online shopping? I know you've had a few, but. So my most recent horse, I, so I like to get horses that are young or green. I call them project horses. So I wanted, I wanted a new project. And so I was living in Central Kentucky at the time where there are lots of horse people. I was kind of lucky there. So my trainer and I just kind of put out feelers. Does anybody have an inexpensive green, unbroke horse that we can come look at? And a friend that worked on one of the big thoroughbred farms had a gilding that they had recently retired from racing. And they had just thrown them out in a field, 30 acre field with bunch of brood mirrors,

3:04because they don't have anything to do with a recently retired gilding thoroughbred. And she was like, you know, he's sound, he's big, he's really pretty. He's a nice horse. We don't really know what to do with him. But he's in the past couple weeks that he's been in this field. He's become feral. We can't catch him. Oh. Yeah. He's just kind of living the best life. And she's like, like, we don't even really need much money for this horse. But if you can come out here and if you can catch him, he's yours. So long story short, we caught him. Actually, we had some help. Some of the barn help. He came out and helped it crawl, crawl him into a little smaller enclosure. And some buckets of feed and some peppermint's helped. But we were able to get a halter on him. And he marched out of the trailer. And yeah, that is probably not the usual way people find their horses. No, I cannot say I have the same story. That is actually insane. I did work with my trainer. My trainer was my connection between the different farms and her network of horse industry people.

4:06So I would recommend people work with a trainer if you have one. Or if there's somebody that you're taking lessons with. You worked with your trainer to find your horse, didn't you? Yeah. So my trainers are like, okay, what's your wish list? And I was like, I want a gilding. I want him to be big. I want him to be a gray. I got the gilding. I got the big. But Shiloh is black. So I guess I gave him the wish list. He's black and beautiful, honestly. I'm obsessed with him. Give him my wish list. And they started reaching out to their connections, people that they thought would have a good fit and would be honest. Because you know, as I'm like, oh, I'm buying a horse. This is so exciting. I'm going on to Facebook and going down these rabbit holes every night, sending them ads of what I think I need, which I'm obviously that was not the right move. And they were like, can you please just trust us here? I'm like, okay, okay. So I think it took them like a month to find him. And he was located in Texas.

5:07So they had the trainer send us some videos. We knew the guy that actually bred him. And he was, Shiloh was bred here in New Cala and then was moved to Texas. So we were able to ask the breeder like, hey, what do you know about the horse? And that kind of stuff. So that was really helpful. But yeah, I think they were sick and tired of me sending them ads at a certain point because I was just like, oh, it's gray. And they were like, it's not in your price range. And I was like, but it's gray. So less and learn to not shop for color. That was a hard realization for me. Well, I will say that you can shop by breed because I know a lot of people have their hearts on a particular breed. Obviously, you know, the quarter horses are pretty predominant in the Western disciplines. I know some people that love the Arabians. I think they typically go through the breed associations and local breeders. Those those directories usually have some good resources if you're interested in a certain breed.

6:07I also know people that get their horses from some of these adoption agencies. If you're on a budget, I mean, you can sometimes find a diamond in the rough for a lot less than a sales price. The adoption fees are usually a lot less. Yeah. I think you just have to be prepared that some of those horses have unknown histories, lingering behavioral or physical issues. That might be better for if you're looking for like a companion horse or recreational riding horse. But I don't think I ever gotten a horse from an adoption or rescue. I know a few people that have. Yeah. And once again, they're more of just like pasture pets for these people because they were like, you know, we have a younger horse that needs a friend and we know it's going to have maintenance or it's going to have. I don't want to say trauma, but some triggers and that's okay with us because it's just going to live out its days. I don't know a few people that have gotten Mustangs from like those Mustang makeovers. Yeah. Which I think is so cool to watch. It couldn't be me. I would not be able to handle that. But that's so cool to me too. Like the people that are doing all of that.

7:09I think now that I live out west, I think that if I were to get a new getting to something new, I would try to get a Mustang and see if I could train it. I think that's fitting. Based on you saying you want a green one that you had to catch in a field. So I mean, I'm getting a Mustang. Stop that different. What are some other ways? Try to think. Oh, an auction. Yeah. I know there's a variety of auctions because you have like the high end online auctions. I think there's like European sport horse auctions that I see. And those are kind of interesting because I know they do give you like a pretty extensive history and like veterinary records and stuff like that. Whereas you've got the maybe you're like local in person auctions that maybe you have to take those horses with a little bit more of a grain of salt because you probably don't have a veterinary history on them. You're not going to be able to try them. You get what you get. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, there are all sorts of ways to find your horse.

8:11Find your next horse. I'm not shopping for one, but I do window shop all the time. Yeah, I went down a rabbit hole actually yesterday. I probably spent two hours on Facebook and big egg and Instagram and all those things. I'm like, oh, I want this. And I'm like, you don't need another horse. I mean, I always want one. But I'm like, once you have one, like, you're going to want multiple. And I was like, I don't like Jillian put the phone down. I'm like, this is a, this is a dangerous game I'm playing. Also, they always look so pretty in their ads. And there have been a couple times where I've shown up to try a horse. I'm like, that's not 16, too. No. Oh. Wait. I feel like that's something we're going to have to talk about at some point. Because that's for another topic, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I want to know. But yeah, I'm trying to think. I guess my is different because in the past, like when I've leased horses, I know you could find a police horse online, stuff like that. But they were in the barn and kind of ready there. That's a good situation.

9:11Yeah. Yeah, because I was able to try the horse multiple times and got to show it before I leased it just because the rider was going off to college. And they were like, when you'd help with the bills? And I was like, I don't know the money for the horse. I'll pay the bills. Yeah. So word of mouth, too. Or in your own barn if horses are for sale or for lease. Yeah, that's a great scenario if you can look into that. Well, I think that's about all the time that we have for our 10-minute tech up. Yeah. But if any of you listeners out there have any questions for us, any horse ownership topics that you want to chat about, you can shoot us an email at my new horse at equinenetwork.com. And you might just get a shout out on the show. Amazing. Already, Alex. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.