February 7, 2024
I wanted to change the horses first name to "Perseus", which in Greek Mythology means, "Destroyer". Unfortunately, the name suited the horse to a tee.
It’s been rainy and wet since the start of February, and we have successfully relocated the new horse to Lavendar Creek for our one-month trial. Due to the rain, I haven’t had the opportunity to ride my potentially new horse at the new barn. While I’ve been at school, the trainers are riding him and checking him out.
It’s only been a few days and today, we received a call from our new trainer. The horse flipped out, literally. While Lauren, a trainer, was just hacking him around the property with another rider and horse and he went ballistic. He reared, reared, spun and reared so hard he fell backwards, over on top of Lauren. He completely pulled himself over backwards on top of her…once she had fallen off, he continued to spin and act maniacal. The trainers and grooms quickly removed the presence of the other horse and cleared the area of all the other horses, yet the horse would still not calm or settle down. A natural reaction to a ‘safe’ or reasonable horse is that once they drop the rider, they feel some sort of regret, they reflect and calm down immediately, but not this guy…he continued to ramp up and overreact…it took multiple grooms to calm him, settle him and get him back to a state of managable quiet.
My mom told me the news, and said that based on her horse experience, this is not the first time this horse has done something like this before. Horses don’t just pull themselves over in such a manner to dump a rider, unless they have done this type of action before. And once the rider is off, they immediately stop to think about what just happened. This horse's rearing was beyond intentional. He is not a safe animal.
We contacted the seller of the horse and let them know of the horse’s unexpected behavior. She said she was unaware of anything like this ever happening before. But upon her own further investigation, she did learn that the horse had a propensity to behave this way, and the previous owners did not disclose this very essential fact to her. His behavior was not his first time “flipping” out or throwing his rider in such a fashion.
Bad news, my new trainer declares that this horse is not safe for me or maybe anyone else. He did not pass the barn test. We are sending him back, immediately. Unfortunately, the owner of the horse is refusing to pay to trailer the horse back to their barn. In fact, they are implying the horse is sound and suggesting that we did something to the horse…little do they know, we’ve brought the horse to an amazing property, like the "Four Seasons” for horses…grass fields, pristine turnouts, organic fresh grown carrot boxes, double wide stalls and a barn floor so clean, you could eat off of it…this horse had an amazing future in front of him.
Everyone, including me, is relieved I was not riding him when he threw his tantrum, but to say I’m disappointed is an understatement. In the meantime, we’re learning a lot about the horse selling and purchasing market. Back to the drawing board…I’m a rider without a horse, again.
Commentaires