Charlie with the long sought after cooler

Charlie with the long sought after cooler
Spring NWEC 2013 Novice

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

John on horse selection

John could see things in the video that I couldn't, like a little bit of shortness in the left front leg - he said movement wasn't even.  He also saw dangling legs where I didn't, even though I had probably watched that video 20 times.
He said the price is ok, that it seems to be what the market is, that the sellers have put $12-15 into a horse over a couple years, and are probably hoping to make about 10%.
He recommended American Horse Transport, a local company, and said a box stall shouldn't be necessary.
He recommended major medical and insurance for at least the first year.
He said because I was comfortable on the horse, that I don't need to send him to John for work right away, although he relented and said give him 3 days off when he first arrives to adjust, then spend 5 days with John where I ride him there every day so that John can watch us.  After he sees me ride, he'll decide about the shows.  He thought the one days at Caber would be a good start.  He said maybe for BN at Inavale.
My alerts were little feet - John said a lot on the east coast have them, kind of upright, and he said work with the farrier once he arrives.  He said there are a lot of horses on the east coast and not enough farriers.  For prelim/*, he said no one can predict how a horse will go until he goes.  He said if Duke has a nice start and a nice personality, but isn't cut out for a *, we'll sell him and after I show he's a good adult amateur training level horse, it shouldn't be too hard.  And that 41 isn't too old - that the average age at Rolex was 48, and someone was 60 going advanced.  The neck was ok.  He showed me the drift left after the fences, but I couldn't see it.
He thought Duke was a little skinny and missing a bit of topline, especially for the east coast weather.
For me, he thinks I need a horse I have a connection with, work with every day, so I need that sweet personality.  He said I really started to click with Charlie once he was entirely my horse.
We might do more than my twice a week lessons at first.
He said he would tell me no, and that he had for other horses.  He said he would say no to any horse that had the OCD surgery.
Also, 2-5 seconds of video was too short for them to really see the horse move.  He watched several of the horses in the other videos, but I was pretty focused on Duke by then.

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