I don't even LIKE red horses!

I went to my first horse auction this weekend. I’ve always said that I would never, ever go to one. And I probably shouldn’t have. About 5 minutes into walking into the sale barn, I was almost in tears. I got there as they were selling loose horses. $20, $35, $5, $15, Give-away. My bleeding heart almost couldn’t take it. Horses with burrs in their manes and tails, horse with their tails cut off, it was heart breaking. I wanted to take them all home with me. But we weren’t really looking to buy, hubby was there networking.

After all the loose horses were sold, in came the saddle horses. Tiny ponies with Amish kids on their backs and great big smiles were lead in and they went for a pretty good price. A beautiful team of great big almost identical paint horses were ridden in. They were bought as a driving team, but ended up going to separate homes. It was when buddies got split up, that I had the hardest time with. They probably spent their entire lives together, and now they were going to separate places and would never see each other again. Registerd AQHA yearlings with show points went for really cheap. Some of the sellers didn’t get what they wanted for their horses, so they kept them. But most of the horses were going cheap, The most expensive horse of the night was a grade ranch horse that went for $2500. If you listed it on one of the local online classified ads for double, you’d probably get it. Beautiful horses kept going through and hubby kept nudging me asking me if I wanted any of them. I said no. That was until the end of the night.



#859

Yes, we bought a horse. At an auction, something I swore I’d never do. He was sold as a grade quarter horse, but he is BIG and in my opinion probably an appendix quarter horse since he looks a little bit like he's got some TB in there. I suck at horse breeds though so he could just be a quarter horse!  I’d be lying if I said it has been peaches and rainbows since we brought him home. When we first brought him to the pasture and turned him loose, we couldn’t catch him again. Awesome. But hubby did some research and then worked on catching the hard to catch horse. It took about 45 minutes but he caught him again. He is a very, very sweet horse. And he leads like a champ. The boy cover A LOT of ground when he moves. And he has a beautiful canter out in the pasture. But he’s pretty amped up because he’s in a new place. And as we figured out, after the deal was done of course, that we bought him from a horse trader so who knows how many homes this guy has had. We know we are the 3^rd home in as many weeks. Buying a horse at an auction is super sketch. Did I make the right decision in buying a horse there? Probably not. Is this going to be a nightmare? More than likely. Am I got to regret this decision every single day for the rest of my life? Probably. Maybe I should start a new blog about him.  Oh and we decided to name him Pistol. If it was entirely my decision, it would be Winston, or Charles, or some other human name. But Pistol was something I just came up with and the only one hubby liked of all my awesome names.  

"You don't even KNOW how much I plan to live up to my new name!"

Pistol was ridden through in the auction ring. We asked the sellers what type of bit he was ridden in, and she said a Tom Thumb because that’s what she uses on all her horses. I have a pile of those bits in my tack room. I’ve never used one, and I’m really not sure how or why I have as many of them as I’ve heard they are pretty harsh bits. I’m not sure if I should switch him to a snaffle, or ride him in a curb, or what the hell I should do. He’s a bit head shy, around his ears. So bridling is going to be a challenge. But one of the reasons we liked him so much was that he was calm and relaxed in the ring. I really hope it wasn’t because he was drugged out of his mind. My friend had an experience like that, hence the reason she named him Ace…because he’d been Ace’d before going into the ring. But the deal is done and we have a new horse! One that I need to figure out, pretty much on my own. I really, REALLY want to get an arena or at the very least a round pen set up. If this horse turns out to be a bronc, I want him to dump me but be confined to a smaller space, There is a hell of a lot of wide open spaces for him to go!

"nomnomnom"

So that is the story of our new horse. I may have a bit of buyer’s remorse kicking in. But he is a very, very sweet horse. He has had a rough couple of weeks, and I want to give him some time to adjust before really trying to figure him out. He seems so distant and detached probably because he thinks he is leaving here in a week. Lets hope everything works out for him and us.

OH, and the best part of this horse....We were looking for something smaller and a different color than our current horses...Not only is this one red, but he TOWERS over the other two! I don't even really LIKE red horses...but red horses sure like me.