Orange Pekoe????????

What an interesting day. I spent yesterday crying on Linda's shoulder, drinking her coffee, and then asking her about how she found her two marvellous warmbloods, who both move like a dream. She gave me a load of numbers and I rang a couple. Oh yes, they had the perfect horse for me - and only £11,500 or so :-0 :-0 :-0

Well, I got hold of the number of a fairly local importer - Ran Abel and rang him and he had three 4 year olds that he could show me at a lot less than that. So this morning we drove the eighty or so miles to get there, with Allan' suit in the back of the car because we had to come home via his business meeting at 2pm this afternoon!

We saw three horses. One coloured - horrible, should have been pulling a cart. I don't care that it moved like a Grand Prix dressage horse I hated the look of it. A lovely 4 year old about 16.3 with HUGE paces - but it dished with its one black leg and for the money he was asking I couldn't accept a defect like that however well it moved.

And a chestnut. With four white socks. And some brindle patches, one on his face and one on his side, inherited from his father (who just happens to jump for a Dutch international team). He's not pretty, he has a stripe on his face which broadens into a white muzzle. And one of his eyes has an unpigmented eyeball, so his iris is surrounded by a ring of white. But he has heart (you can just tell), and he pings off the floor when he trots and bounds along in canter. And he jumps like stink already. He's a lovely character too, interested and slightly cheeky. He's 16.2 and nowhere near full grown.

I'm quite taken with him, and it's a problem that he's the first one I've seen, because if he was the 10th, or even the 5th, I'd take him. As it is, I'm going back to ride him on Monday and we'll take it from there.

Now, I have to confess that this horse is an AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWFUL lot of money, even if it's nowhere near £11,500. So much that I am ashamed to even admit how much I am considering spending on what is only a horse. But the trouble is that he's not "only a horse". He's my last chance to event at novice again before I am too old. And when I saw this one, I really thought that I could do it again on a strange horse. There's just no way you'd start him at Intro. Even at 4 it would be a total insult. So he'd come out at pre-novice in April and there's more than half a chance he could do novice by the end of August at Henbury. The prospect of that is so exciting it's almost worth mortgaging the house for.......

And a chestnut with four white socks - you know how long I've been wanting one of those! I have to say I'm very predisposed to buy him if he rides well - and Superhubby is dead keen and took to him immediately (and it was SO funny seeing his jaw drop when he saw the horse move!)

Tetley news is that I now have at least 30 homes to choose from so he will be settled soon. Victoria is coming through my research well. I can't find hide nor hair of her details on the web, trying to find out if she's a dealer. Only as having recently sold one horse, which is the one which trotted up the centre line and chucked her straight into the judges box!

Caddy has been in the barn today, I'm taking no risks with him before tomorrow. Tetley won't be ridden again except to show him to people - why would I torment myself with what I can't have? Tia is having a well deserved holiday, she doesn't need to be working right now and she seems very happy just to have some attention.

Thanks for all your supportive comments. I have been reviewing my last two years of horse owning and it's been a complete disaster! It looks like this:

October 2004 - Scooby goes down with laminitis and develops a permanent and extreme sensitivity to grass sugars.
March 2005 - I buy Casper unseen apart from photos and when he arrives he turns out to be extremely photogenic and nothing like as good a horse in the flesh. His back is enormously long, his chest is narrow and he has a choppy knee action and no real gallop, so he won't make an eventer and within a month I know that I will have to sell him.
August 2005 - I have to part with Scooby (having achieved five consecutive showjumping clears) because I can't keep him interested in life on a yard where nothing happens all day.
September 2005 - Tetley is eliminated for refusing cross country fences, something which is completely uncharacteristic and is a leading sign of the hock problems brewing.
December 2005 - Tetley becomes intermittently lame in the hocks and can't compete.
January 2006 - Smartie is diagnosed with partial sight and his behaviour deteriorates steadily.
March 2006 - Smartie is almost totally blind and is put down. I lose all £2,500 I have paid for him.
October 2006 - Tetley is declared unfit to live in a hilly area or jump affiliated competition.

The plusses, which I prefer to focus on, are of course that I made a significant profit on Casper, having bought him for £2000 (yes, Lucie was desperate, he'd been for sale for months with no buyers) and sold him for £3,800. That I have rescued Caddy from racing and had fun with him here this summer for no cost. That Tia is a little gem both in character and performance, who was a complete bargain money-wise. And that Tetley's write-off has inspired Allan to almost force me to spend serious money on a serious horse for the first time in my life. What a roller-coaster, eh????

C