5 I NEED a New Horse… Now!

by Jenny · Published February 25, 2019 · Updated February 25, 2019

So it’s only October – the New Zealand endurance season starts in August but takes a month or so to get going as the weather is usually fairly wet and courses soggy – and the only horse I own is broken. It was a little ironic that I had just sold Supes as he wasn’t getting ridden and was too good to waste. So there was George confined to barracks for three months on his own.

I needed a new horse so I could get to the next Waikato ride! And I was prepared to get a part arab… I wasn’t ready for a full arab yet, I had spent a lot of time amongst “normal” pony club type people who, as we know, are not terribly complimentary of arabs at times. And in fact any arabs I had come across had generally been a bit neurotic, but I had realised even then that most got too much food and not enough work.

So I went with Kerry to see Ngapa Phoenix, nice enough but not very forward going, though very pretty. I went on my own to see Petra’s horse Peanut, we had a nice ride and I was tempted, but it came down to the horse actually having done quite a bit of endurance already, I would feel I had to do better, people would be comparing how he went with me versus Petra. It didn’t feel right. I went over to Tauranga with a horse float to see a young one that belonged to some endurance people… A Standardbred Arab cross! I was determined to like it… but it was a bit too big and clumsy and had a large lump on its front leg, apparently not a problem but you do worry.

Kerry and I were both scanning Trademe daily (New Zealand’s version of eBay), and as is always the case when you’re looking there was pretty much nothing out there. So we thought we’d go and take a look at this one… A part arab over at Ngatea.

Someone else was looking at her on Saturday, if they didn’t take her we were going to look on Sunday. Saturday saw me helping in the caravan at our Whatawhata ride – no horse.

She didn’t sell on Saturday… Kerry and I were on our way to see a horse.

I had all my gear in the car, so we put my saddle on. And then when we saw the bridle on offer I got George’s bridle out and used that as well… their bridle was too small, the bit was too big and the throat lash too short to do up. There was only one small paddock to ride in, I could barely get her to trot and she kept getting stuck in the corner, and threatening to buck if I got pushy. Turns out the owner was afraid of her and only lunged her or rode at a walk. She’d never had a cover on as they’d tried once and she hadn’t liked it so they didn’t try again. Hmmm. Also the day before the people trying her had a go at lunging her in a western saddle, it didn’t sound like that had gone well either!

So Kerry said we’d think about it and let her know. We discussed it on the way home… she was a bit smaller than I had planned, a bit less ridable than ideal… but Kerry liked her colour, and there was nothing else around! Kerry also suggested that just getting her out of Ngatea (a small, out of the way village) and making her ridable would be enough to get my money back if she proved unsuitable. The asking price was $1200, Kerry suggested I should offer $500, I thought that under half the asking price was a bit unfair so I offered $600… the owner asked for $700 and I told her what Kerry’s offer was so she accepted $600.