This one should be easy. At one level of course the easiest thing in the world is to buy a horse (conversely the most difficult is to sell one – something this THF has never known achieved). But buying the right one – there’s the rub. First rule is that any horse for sale is clearly not good enough (otherwise it would not be for sale). Second rule is that however well you vet it at least 50% will go permanently lame very quickly – at which point you will be told that everyone knew this one had been on the market for ages and that it had had suspensory/foot/back issues for years. Indeed didn’t you know it had been out of competition for a year? Third rule is watch out for auctions which to the lay observer are simply bizarre. Why anyone would buy a horse that has been ridden to extremes for a week before the sale at an age when elsewhere many haven’t even been broken seems frankly extraordinary – but we all fall for it (at least once), and what would we know anyway. As for recommendations from trainers, enough said.
There is of course a point at which you can either be lucky, or you have enough money to buy a guaranteed team horse/pony. Thus the sale of Totilas has limited risk (other than of egg on face – and lots of rather enjoyable schadenfreude) and great ponies simply stay on a team and tolerate successive riders rich enough to afford them. The alternative purist approach to buy young, break them yourself and wait is admirable and excellent, but for the THF somewhat frustrating and inevitably risky. Indeed it can be as expensive as you need to buy quantity to ensure surviving quality and they never get sold (as in ” this will be a great investment” – not!) The idea that any Funded will ever sell a horse they have bought at 1 and raised and broken themselves is simply laughable, if understandable. In a nutshell therefore, you are lost.
thehorsefunder 
Leave a comment