A Tale of Two Horses, revisited

McKinna at Inavale eventing camp, summer 2009

I have been chewing over a bit of a dilemma for quite some time now.

It has simmered quietly in the back of my mind, bubbling just a little bit louder sometimes-- like when I ended up taking McKinna to the eventing camp. Or when I ended up taking McKinna to my rating. Or when I ended up taking McKinna to the first two dressage lessons . . .

You get the point.

So the simmering question is this: am I wasting my chance for riding McKinna in her best years?

I never got the chance to truly work on McKinna. I rode her for about a year, took her to her first XC schooling sessions, did high school equestrian team, and had a great time. Just after I broke my ankle, I joined Pony Club and bought Pandora. My riding has improved by leaps and bounds since I joined - but I've hardly focused on McKinna since then. I have never turned my new skills, long-term, to riding her.

When I do ride her, it's great. She kicked butt at an eventing camp with pretty much no preparation and I was able to successfully get my D-3 rating on her, also with not much preparation. (Not that she was perfect. But, she was fun.)

Both of them have sort of been booted into gear as I start conditioning again for the season. McKinna took over the first two dressage lessons since Pandora whacked her poll, and they went very very well. So well that my mother has insisted I keep schooling her, and the improvement is awesome.

This is difficult, because riding Pandora is also very fun. She's cheerful - even more cheerful than McKinna, who can be grumpy in the winter. She's incredibly sweet and friendly and always willing to come in from the pasture to say hi.

Pandora comes in for some snuggles, summer 2009

She's also sensible: last night, the trainer was working a young gelding who's been laid off from a cough for awhile. He was really full of beans and at one point got the rope under his leg, and she let him go so he didn't hurt himself. Pandora and I were at the end of the arena, and as he came galloping towards us at full speed, I just settled her into a halt on a light contact and stayed in as secure of a seat as I could. He flew by a few feet from us; Pandora snorted and jumped a bit to the side when his trailing rope nearly hit her, but other than that she was calm and quiet.

She's pretty laid-back about scary fences. Even last spring when we jumped a course of Inavale's brightly decorated fences, including one zebra-painted end fence, she hardly blinked. She's easy to get along with. Sometimes she gets upset about something, but it's so easy to bring her down just by staying calm and giving her a moment to process what's going on.

But.

If you'll recall, I never intended to keep Pandora forever. I wavered back and forth: project horse to sell, or keep for longer? And if you also recall, I decided to keep her for at least another year. I had lots more to learn from her, I decided. (And I did have more to learn, and I have learned a lot.)

At the same time, McKinna has a lot to teach me, and I feel like I should take advantage of this now. My time and effort may be better invested into McKinna: regardless whether I keep my horse for this year, I will sell Pandora before I graduate college. This is because of the way my after-college plans are looking, which I will talk at length about in my next post. I love and care about Pandora, but she is not my "forever horse" and I knew that when I bought her.

After-college plans considered, though, McKinna is my mom's horse, and she will stay with our family for the rest of her (long and happy!) life. Any training I put into her will continue to benefit us in the long run as my mom will still ride her.

There are other advantages and disadvantages, of course. Sharing one horse between us means sharing expenses - all the money I currently spend on Pandora and her upkeep could then go to more lessons, more clinics, and the ability to maybe go to MORE than one recognized event. The mind, it boggles.

On the flip side, sharing one horse means . . . sharing one horse. We did it for awhile, but it usually means less riding time for Mom, and it also means one of us is always stuck not doing much while the other person rides. I think we could handle it, but it could sometimes get frustrating. (That being said, in most cases it's not too hard to find a horse in need of an occasional ride, so riding together wouldn't necessarily be out of the question.)

Then it comes back to Pandora. I think she is an excellent lower-level eventing/PC/do whatever you want horse. She's fun, sweet, laid-back. There are a few things to work out - for example, at my rating, she was rushing quite a bit on XC, and I think I can resolve that with some quiet schooling. She's also a little volatile about trailering lately, which is a bit of a leftover from her accident, but with patience she's already begun to settle down again.

Trotting at a Karen O'Neal clinic, spring 2009

So it's not that she can't do what I want to do. She did well last year at the combined tests and event derbies and schooling shows. At Lily Glen we were schooling Novice XC with great success. I strongly believe that after a few more dressage lessons, I'll start to see a big difference in her too. Last night I was working on some concepts from the first lesson. Since I've only taken one lesson on Pandora with the dressage trainer, I wasn't entirely sure if I was on the right track - but I asked for a canter transition and it was immediate and balanced, so I'm pretty sure I was headed in the right direction.

But maybe it's time for both of us to move on.

I've put a year and a half of training and time and love into her. Consistent sessions with the chiropractor have made an incredible difference in her body and her comfort level. A switch to this barn, where she gets year-round turnout in a pasture as well as mountains of hay, has created a horse who is very happy throughout the year (instead of a head-flipping mess in the winter) and who needs very little grain to maintain good weight.

It's hard to think that anyone will ever take as good care of her as I do. I CAN'T be alone in this. Other people feel this way too, right?! But I also, logically, know that's not true. Somewhere out there is a person looking for a friendly, enjoyable horse to have fun with, someone who will feed her lots of hay and make sure she gets turnout and take excellent care of her.

So here's the general idea: I'm just not sure what to do. At this point, selling her this spring or early summer to a really good home sounds like the best idea. I'm not under time pressure, so I will have the leisure to look for a perfect match. Then I can take McKinna to the recognized HT at Inavale, my C-2 rating, and finally just get a chance to make some progress with arguably the coolest little mare ever.


Phew. That was a lot - and like I said, I have been mulling over this for a long time. It is NOT a bad dilemma to have, and I know I'm lucky to have an excess of good horses. But that's what I've been thinking, and I sure wouldn't mind some thoughts from you guys on the whole matter.

Presentation Part II: Good

Awhile back, I decided to do a short series on the varying levels of presentation in sale horses. We started off with Poor presentation, which you can find here.

Now, again featuring the lovely McKinna as our model, let's examine Good presentation! I know I said in the first post that this one would be called 'Average,' but let's face it, Average ads these days are 3 sentences on Craigslist. So, without any further ado:

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McKinna is a 13 year old QH/Arab mare, 14.3 hands. She has a very sweet and intelligent personality, and she's very versatile. Main focus is eventing right now. She competed in Oregon High School Equestrian Teams for 2 years in english and western and gaming. She is good on trails and has schooled XC at Inavale - loves the water complex! Would be a perfect Pony Club mount. Loads/ties/clips/bathes, UTD on everything. $3000.


More pictures available, please email or call for more information.



When you email me, I will respond within a couple days. I will tell you a little bit about what I've done with her, explain what level she's schooling and showing at, probably tell you that she's an easy keeper and is happiest with turnout. I'll send you a few more pictures, action shots and just standing. I'll make a joke about how she's grey so she loves to roll in mud. I will probably ask you what you're looking to use her for, but I probably won't ask you for references or for a description of where you will board.

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Okay - this is a pretty good ad. We've got three pictures - jumping, regular under saddle, and a somewhat well-posed conformation shot. I've given the buyer important information: age, sex, breed, height. I've noted her varied background but shown that our main focus is eventing.
I've thrown in the obligatory load/tie/clip/bathe/UTD statements.

In general, this presents a pretty solid picture. There is enough information here to give the buyer a good summary of the horse in order to determine if further inquiry is going to happen. She's clean in the pictures and they show her doing what I say she does.

This being said, what improvements could be made? These are subtle, but can make a big difference.

- Jumping photo: she is safe and neat, but not her best. It's a low fence and she's twisting a little, and her forelegs aren't as high as they normally are. It's also from head-on; preferable jumping shots are from the side or a 45-degree angle.
- Conformation shot: this gives you a good idea of her conformation, but it could be improved. The clunky longeing caveson obscures her head, she's at a slight angle, and she's standing a bit awkwardly.
- Background info: instead of "english and western and gaming," more specifics would be preferable. Also, you'll notice I neglected to state how high she jumps, which is usually a consideration when buying a jumper!
- Video: Notice that there isn't one. This is not a dealbreaker for most people - if they like the horse, they'll come see it anyway - but can be a nice touch.


In all, this is a good quality ad and would serve any horse well.

Next time, we'll go all-out: clean, braided horse, carefully written ad, thoughtfully set-up conformation shot, and high-quality flatwork and jumping pictures. It may take awhile to put together, because I'm not sure I *have* high-quality jumping and flatwork pictures ;-)

Presentation Part I: Poor

I'm going to skip the stage of the ad that's Very Poor, i.e. a Craigslist ad that says "Horse for sale, $600" with no picture. There's not much point in me doing that!

So -- I'll be demonstrating the next step up.

Remember, all three of these steps will feature McKinna, so it will be pretty obvious how different presentations can make a horse look bad or good.

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McKinna is a 12 year old QH/Arab mare she is good at Jumping and trails. A great ridding horse and good for a broodmare maybe. Shes a lil quick at the walk but real good for everything else and woud be Awesome for OHSET or 4H or your new pleasur horse. Shes a very pretty white color. $1500.

(Gratuitous capitalization, run-on and fragmented sentences, slang, misspellings, an endorsement of her purdy color? Check. However, there is some useful information [age, breed].)



(Strange-angle picture that tells you nothing about the horse, but illustrates the creativity of construction 'round here? Check.)

(Very, *very* tiny picture of me standing next to her in a field of jumps, suggesting that it's possible she can jump but also raising the question of why I'm on the ground? Check.)

([Small] Pasture picture of questionable conformational integrity? Check.)



Upon you emailing me to ask further questions, I will wait six and a half days to reply. With the bare minimum of syllables per sentence, I will answer about 70% of the questions you ask, simply forgetting to answer the rest. I will not volunteer any information that you did not ask for. I will then either end the email, or write several long paragraphs detailing why times are hard and I need to sell my horse, how my friend's sister's uncle's dentist's cousin is a great trainer and real good with the unbroke ones, and give you a detailed analysis of my health and financial situations.

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This does not paint a very attractive picture. If I saw a sale ad with these photos, I would do one of two things. If nothing caught my attention about the ad, nothing that I thought could make this horse a steal for the price, I'd just drop it. If I saw something I liked, I'd probably ask for more, or just go look at the horse -- the first picture shows me that she might actually be a decent looking horse. Maybe.

But the point is, if you put up an ad like this, you are not going to attract the kind of people you want.

That being said, if you're looking for a diamond-in-the-rough (and I mean rough), these kinds of ads can often be a place to look. For example, the ad for Pandora said something like "Appendix mare, 6 y/o, has been on trails and evented. $600. Email for more info." The pictures she sent us were pasture shots at strange angles, with one small head-on jumping photo that didn't tell us much. Pretty bare-bones. I spoke to a trainer to ask her if she could come test-ride her for me, since I was obviously still broken-ankled. Trainer told me that a horse that cheap has red flags a mile wide (well, it's true, she does have a supposed backstory of rearing) and that she wouldn't even go look at her.

Well, that was pretty sound advice. But I also went and looked at her, bought her, and so far she's been nothing but 100% pleasant to work with, willing to please, and intelligent. No nasty behaviors. No resistance (other than wanting to tuck behind the bit -- an anxiety thing). She doesn't get rude on the ground, she's wonderful for tacking up and grooming, she offers no funny business under saddle.

So -- here you go. If you're looking for a bargain, poor presentation like this can be your friend, because you may find a truly nice horse that other people passed over because of price, advertisement, whatever. If you are selling your horse, put the extra couple hours in to take some good pictures, please!

After this, Presentation Part II: Average.

Closing the Sale

Okay, first off, thank you guys so much for the info on horse insurance! It's a lot of food for thought. I'd known it existed before but never put much thought into it. I read all of your comments (even the small novels that some of you wrote! Kidding, kidding) and really appreciated the information you gave me.

Things with my ankle have been going quite well. I'm actually able to walk on the boot without the crutches now, though it's kind of a zombie-limp. I feel like I should be shuffling along drooling and snarling and trying to eat someone. This has been a welcome relief from the crutches, because one of them is pinching a nerve on my left arm in a serious way, so a lack of crutches lets me get away from that.

It also lets me get around the barn a lot better. I can help bring the horses in, I can help carry tack, and so on. I still haven't tried longeing yet. I could probably handle McKinna fine since you basically just stand there and give voice commands, I s'pose.

I rode a little tonight! Just a walk on Pandora, but it was my first ride on her, and was quite nice. I suspect she's been asked to have a headset in the past rather than take contact with the bit, because she tends to tuck behind the vertical a little. It may just be an understanding issue, as there were some times where I got her to step forward into a nice contact without tucking her chin. We'll see where that leads. She does have a very nice walk, though.

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There's several things that you should keep in mind as you close the sale of your horse.

I admit this is more geared towards, well, the way I sell horses. A horse I've owned for quite awhile, know very well, and for whom I want the absolute best possible future life. Not all items on this apply to, say, people who buy and sell horses for a living -- but then, most people who read my blog don't do that, so I think we're safe.

Among them, a bill of sale. You can look up plenty of samples online. In general it includes but is not limited to these elements: names of seller and buyer, horse's name/age/description, for which price [note that it is paid in full on such and such date], horse is now sole property of buyer, and so on. Signed by both parties, one copy each to buyer and seller.

Consider feed and possibly water to send with your horse, or at least inform the buyer of the horse's feed for a gradual transition -- not so much an issue if your horse doesn't eat much other than grass hay. For the exceptionally picky horse, sending a bucket or two of your 'home barn' water may help the transition but that may be more for the overly-worrying types!

It is very helpful for the buyer to know your horse's measurements. What size blanket? Saddle tree? Bridle? Bit? Do you have anything you'd like to send with the horse? With Bailey, we sent some blankets -- we didn't have a horse they'd fit anymore, they weren't worth much to sell, and we wanted to be sure he had blankets for the winter.

Do make sure that your horse loads safely. No-brainer, I know. But it will go a long way towards everyone's peace of mind if there isn't an hour-long ordeal to get the horse headed to its new home.

Get contact information from the buyer. I don't know about you, but I like to hear how the horse is doing every once in awhile. Bailey's owner sends us emails every once in awhile letting us know how things are going, and once she sent pictures. It's nice.

Make sure you do what's necessary to transfer papers, depending on your horse's registration (or lack thereof). The Thoroughbred registry, for example, doesn't track transfers of ownership but you can simply sign off on the papers. I won't claim to know the way other registries do it -- perhaps you could enlighten me?

You may also want to give them your horse's medical records. At the least, letting the buyer know the date of the horse's last immunizations and deworming would make it easy to continue a healthy program at the future barn.

Alright -- it's bedtime and I'm all out of ideas!

What else do you guys make sure to do when you're selling a horse?

Thoughts on Selling Horses

Here's a few guidelines for your ads.

Take good pictures. This one's kind of obvious, but still. Take the time to get your horse clean and on level ground. If your horse is trained, take pictures of it under saddle in action. Multiple pictures are better than one. Pictures from shows are great, if you're selling a show horse. If you have Photoshop, here is one super-easy adjustment that makes most pictures balance better in terms of color: open your image. At the top, go to Image--> Adjustments--> Auto Levels (or just press Shift+Ctrl+L). It balances the levels in the image and usually makes everything look nicer.

Write well. Do not write in all caps. If you don't know when to use periods, commas, or capitalization, ask a friendly neighborhood high-schooler for help. Please. For the sake of my eyes. In the text of your ad, some good things to include: age/name/color/gender; training history; show experience; important quirks (needs injections, on regumate, only sound for light work, has deathly fear of barn cats, etc etc); general description of personality; type of home your horse would be best in; whether the horse loads/clips/ties/bathes; why you're selling, and so on. This will always be specific to you and your horse. Keep the ad relatively short, with enough information to pique interest. You don't need to disclose minor issues here (doesn't like loading, doesn't get along well with mares, only drinks bottled water, whatever) but major ones like unsoundness or other issue would probably be best if included in the ad -- in other words, big dealbreakers might be best disclosed immediately so nobody wastes anybody else's time.
If you only follow one part of that, just put something more than "Bay QH Mare, 15hh, good gaming or OHSET prospect." If you say "Bay registered AQHA Mare, daughter of such-and-such sire, 15hh. Patterned on barrels and poles, explosive speed with a lot of potential. Intense and focused but can relax nicely, would make a great project horse for a junior, OHSET or 4H," you will probably get a LOT more interest.

Volunteer information. When a buyer emails you for more info, telling them about the horse (brief history, personality, why you're selling, whatever you feel like and you didn't include in the text) will probably garner more interest than a sentence or two with the bare minimum. Answer all questions asked.

Be honest. It is very frustrating to a buyer to show up to find a horse whose behavior is nothing like what was described; it wastes your time and your buyer's.

If you're going to sell a horse by word of mouth, that's great (and probably a better way to make sure it goes into good hands). If you're going to sell online, spend the money for a picture ad. Use multiple sites, though -- there are plenty of sites that are free or at least inexpensive for photo ads. A quick sampling: Equisearch, Dreamhorse, Chronicle, Equine Hits, BigEq, Equine Now, Exchange H/J. Here's a tip -- put one photo up on the ad so you don't have to pay much. Then, make a [free] simple website (we used Brinkster, but other options include Freewebs or Geocities) to compile more pictures, a quick description, and possibly some videos. Put the link to this site in the text of your ad after your brief description. Most of these websites come with 'site builder' applications that make it really easy to design a simple website.

For an example, here is the website we used when we were selling Bailey. It's really simple -- on the main page, it has links to videos of jumping schooling and three videos (one from each phase) from the schooling Horse Trials I took him to. It has some pictures and a few paragraphs describing him. Then there's a link to a page with more pictures and a page with contact information. It's simple, easy to go through, and gives you way more visual information than you could ever cram into an ad. No, he's not still for sale ;)

Another good venue is local horse organizations. Around here, good all-around horses are often emailed to the OHSET chair to send out to his/her massive email list of all teams and team members. If your area has a high school equestrian team, try emailing someone in the leadership to ask if they could pass around the information of your horse. Print out fliers and hang them in local feed/tack stores and barns. Contact your local Pony Club or 4H group to ask if they can spread the word.

Price accordingly. It's not hard to use those internet classifieds or ask around to see what horses of similar breeding and training are selling for.

Also, check your email. I know it sounds silly, but there are a lot of people who don't check their email more than once or twice a week; change that habit while you're selling a horse and check it at least once a day.

Be on time when a buyer comes to look at your horse. I don't know about everyone, but I'd prefer that the horse is in a stall if not in a pasture, rather than all tacked up pretty and ready to go. I also prefer that the horse is first longed and then ridden by the seller, then I will get on. That's my personal preference; your mileage may vary.


Tomorrow: Some Things to Do to Close the Deal


PS - if any of you ever would like help putting an ad together, shoot me an email. I'd be happy to do the Photoshop levels-balance, help you write a good paragraph, give my impression of your horse's pictures, help you with a website, whatever. It doesn't take much time and it helps a horse get a good home, so I'm all for it!