Shock change of plans!
I got a phone call at nine o'clock this morning from a guy who lives about 45 minutes away. After telling me his life history with horses (why DO sellers think I want to know about every horse they have ever owned?) he said he had a black gelding, 16.3, 5 years old, Shire cross with jumping bloodlines for sale. I figured since it was so close that I had to go and see it this morning, before driving for three hours to see the other one on Thursday morning, with an overnight stop tomorrow to boot. I had no expectations, having seen no photos.
Well!! What a stunner. The moment I saw his black chiselled head over the door I knew he was a class horse. 16.3? At least 17 hands, I'd say, maybe a tad over. The police wanted him but the owner is being very picky about who is allowed to have him and wouldn't sell to them. They offered £4000 apparently. He has also been offered similar amounts by dealers and he won't sell to them either. (This wasn't sales talk, they weren't the owners who showed him to me, and they told me a lot of other stuff about how many people had turned him down that they never would have if they were trying to push a sale through!).
He was sharp, but very friendly, very people orientated. I felt him all over in the stable and my goodness, does he have a HUGE backside or what. Hip points a yard apart! I had him walked up and back, trotted up and back and he seemed to have a dead straight action. I had him chased around a small indoor school (actually the covering shed, with the AI "mare" in the middle!) and loose jumped over a small fence. He was green but interested, with no sign of a buck in him even though he was being chased with a whip (but he did keep trying to come back and get SH to rub his ears for him, which we thought was a great sign!).
He is broken, but he has not been ridden since December and they did not want to ride him (the guy was a total wimp!). They are only liverying the horse out of friendship, it's a stud not a livery yard, so no reason why they would ride him. I'm convinced they aren't hiding anything, too many "open" faces - a groom, a yard manager and a yard owner all saying how much they love him and want a good home for him.
I got them to tack him up and he was VERY happy with the tack and I would have been perfectly happy to pop on board if they'd had a saddle that actually fitted him and an indoor with walls instead of gates.
He is six, not five, technically brown but most people would call him black, and he's huge. Enormous. A real man's horse. A Master's hunter, once he's learnt the job. One of the things that I like best is that he is definitely a hunter, not a dressage horse. He's got long rangy movement without a lot of suspension, and he won't compete with Jazz for a job, they will each have completely separate jobs to do. That's a big bonus.
On the minus side, he is definitely sharper, and therefore more of a risk, than I meant to buy. On the plus side, he is MUCH more horse than I thought I would find for £3000. And he is SO my kind of horse. I'm waiting for a phone call at 6.30 to confirm, but I think that I will have agreed a deal tonight and will probably pick him up on Thursday.
No photos, sorry, I took my camera and forgot to take any in all the excitement!
C
posted by cptrayes @ 3:39 PM
19 comments
19 Comments:
oh and would you bleive it, this hulking great black brute is called "Starlight" !!!!!!! That'll DEFINITELY have to go, it only suits a 12 hand pony :-)
And they call him Sonny, which is precious close to sounding racist to me, so that won't stick either....
Names please!
C
Uhm, wow, that happened fast! He sounds like a real gem, though. How do you manage to find these horses so quickly...or is the market just better there in Britain? Several people I know here in the US are still looking after months and months.
May have to wait for some pics before we come up with names, but let me think on it. Right now we are studying Midsummer Night's Dream, so Oberon (King of the Night and fairy king) comes to mind as a possiblity. Obie for short?
Let me work on it. Starlight does not exactly fit. Maybe the name of a constellation?
Orion? Phoenix? Pegasus?
Wow, you are so enthusiastic! I bet this is the one.
My goodness what a turn up, he sounds beautiful fingers crossed again!
Oberon I love that name Jean and by his description sounds a great choice but I am sure Caroline will have her own ideas coz she has seen him in the flesh
How exciting
Anne
He's mine. Pickup Thursday.
C
Oh, my goodness!!! I can't wait. Don't forget the camera to chronicle the entire adventure.
Jean I always buy on potential, not actual. I know so many people who will only buy if the horse is what they want NOW, not what they want to make it into. He's not what I want now, he has to be rebacked and taught to jump. That and his sheer size would put off most buyers. But I can see that he is a £6000 horse in 6 months time, and that I can make him that horse, and that's a really exciting proposition for me.
He's a fine horse ML, very much in the Tetley mould - so interested in people and in the world at large. Dying to work for someone and not being allowed to. He is going to love having a job to do, you can just see it in his face.
I love Oberon and might well use that for posh but it doesn't work for a stable name. We are currently calling him "Batman" but that won't last! Not least because Battie is not what I would him to be :-)
C
would want him to be, that should have said. How can you tell that we have opened my Birthday bottle of champagne??
C
He has one tiny bit of white on one back foot, about an inch, and white heels on the other back foot, and other than that he is entirely "80% cocoa chocolate" coloured brown. I don't normally really like faces that are entirely without white, but his is spectacular!
I'm excited, can you tell?
C
Even though we are all online, it's so much fun to share this with you! I love his color and his described personality; little does he know what's about to befall him. I will have Tetley text him and then he will be so excited!
battie to go with butty.
one of my grandad's given names was Batty, but he wasn't at all (and lived to a very ripe old age!)
but oberon does sound good!
Well, Oberon could be either Obie or Ronny. Still have to think on this, but maybe when we see him...
If he has brown points, I call that a "seal bay," which does look black...and you know I love my bays!
When is your birthday? Today is Chance's birthday and the birthday of one of my best friends, Shelley. Either way, you are getting one super present this time with this guy.
No noticeable points Jean, a uniform colour from head to foot. Dark, dark, dark rich brown with a black nose. My Birthday was last week, I had a fab time and got Sonia to come over for a whole day with my friends :-))))
Ronnie might do it. Have to see him at home to find out.
C
Go away for a few days and I come back to find you've got yourself a horse!! Amazing and VERY exciting!!
Ronnie reminds me of two horses I knew that were named after the Krays!! Not sure...
Louise
Bloody norra...I miss the blog for one day and you go and buy a horse!
So Typhoo is arriving on Thursday! can't wait to see the pics!
I really want to call him The Dark Knight for posh but how many of this year's dark colour foals are going to be called that? All of them????
TyphooNNNN would be nice Mandeigh. Ronnie Kray doesn't do it for me either Louise!
C
Just found your blog - read your most recent post and he is quite handsome! In reading the past posts, you have mentioned a few times that he is "sharp". In the U.S., "sharp" is either smart or can also be used when someone is dressed to the nines. But not sure what you mean by "sharp" in your description of the horse. Saw it a few times and just curious.
Wow, 17hh!
Tammy we also have "sharp dressers" meaning the same as you, very smart and up to the minute fashion, particularly for a man.
"Sharp" in a horse means "quick to react". So they are quick to react to things in their environment and may catch you out by seeing things before you do. Or they may react very quickly to aids and surprise the rider that way. I love sharp horses but they aren't for novices or the nervous!
C
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