By Mark Woodcock
Choosing a horse will be one of the most important decisions youever make so for the sake of both you and the horse – take yourtime.
At 50 I was a bit older than the average first time horse owner,so should have got it right. I fell in love with a pretty littlehorse that I had ridden on a riding holiday when he was in hisown environment and I was relaxed and had all the time in theworld.
9 months later, after a lot of heartache I admitted that he wasthe wrong horse for my lifestyle and experience and fortunatelyhe was able to go back to his original owner. Pretty traumaticfor me, but less so for him as he was going back to where he washappy.
Our livery yard owner helped me decide what type of horse I waslooking for by considering the following:
1. My horse riding experience 2. Who I would be able to ridewith 3. The grazing, stabling and riding available to me 4. Howmuch time I had for horse care and training 5. How much money Ihad to buy a horse and care for it 6. What size horse I wascomfortable with and was sensible for me 7. Whether I wanted aparticular horse breed or colour
We decided that based on the above, a traditional coloured gypsyhorse would be ideal and found Amy, a 5 year old ex brood-mare.She was road trained and gentle with lovely paces, but wasoblivious to all the standard horse training commands.
2 years on I can’t imagine life without her. She may not be themost beautiful horse around (though I think she is) and with afull time job to fit round her, she adapts to whatever horsecare and horse riding routine I need. We have had a lot of funimproving our horse riding skills together and I hope that wewill still be doing so for many years to come.
So step back and consider the above points before you chooseyour horse, as he/she will be relying on you to make the rightdecisio
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