Killer Horses

["Laura Hayes" <mark@madbbs.com>]

I haven't followed this whole thread, because I don't have the patience to open all the files I get from ridecamp, BUT, I have a killer horse - $400 at the local auction - came in on her hind legs, so Killer may fit in more than one way.  I have owned her for 15 years now.  She is probably an Anglo Arab and was fully an adult when I got her, but she was a super endurance horse for myself and all the people I lent her to over the years.  One season, with limited competition, she won 4 50s (100%) and was BC at all of them.  She also was fourth at a 100 and BC.  She was probably 14 or 15 years old at that point.

 

Did I get problems with my cheap horse?  Sure, some of the same ones I have gotten with expensive horses.  I really don't think that the price of the horse is indicative of the quality.  Sometimes there is an unrealized potential, sometimes there is a reason that someone had to dump a horse at a killer auction.  In the case of my mare, she was just a little 'goofy'....some of the local cowboys would have said "stupid arab", but she just needed the right person to bring her along.

 

I have bred my mare once and got a great little mare who is going to a new endurance home this week, she is 6 years old, broke, sane and sound.  I sold her for $1800 to the 'right home' (I waited to find that right home).  I think you could call her a cheap horse, but since she is not big enough for me, I was willing to let her go cheap to someone who will love her and use her the way I want to see her used.  Did I make money?  Yeah, right....I had her for 6 years!   But I feel good about her, and the woman buying her is getting a great horse.  If she can't keep her anytime in the future, I would take her back.

 

I am not sure where all this is going, but I think it is important to remember that there may be reasons horses end up somewhere as CHEAP.  They are not all problems or unhealthy, or nuts.

 

By the way, I bought Azzor Kishi (Oz) for $600 and he was 24th in the nation and first and

best condition champ in the NE as a 6 year old.  I sold him that year and he was 2nd in the ROC in Kentucky with a heavywt. Cheap horse.

 

Laura Hayes  AERC 2741