Friday Featured FUGLY Stallion #3 and An Update

Man oh man is Atlanta a hotbed of horrible stallions! I had such a hard time deciding between them for FFFS #3. I found the FFFS #2 out of the same city, and thought for this week I'd go back to see what I could find. Got a goldmine I tell ya! 

Ad Text: NASHDA Index Registered Percheron/Paint 16.2 hh Bay overo very sweet natured and easy to handle. . Stud fee $150 

That was the entire ad. How pathetic. 

The horse itself... is not really much better. I'm not even going to bother giving him a conformational critique... its so just not worth my time.

Now, I had to ask myself what the heck is NASHDA? And of course, WHY the heck this FUGLY stallion is still a stallion. (Which is rhetorical because if he was gelded, he wouldn't be our FFFS #3, now would he :D)

So, NASHDA is a long acronym for North American Spotted Draft Horse Association. I bolded Draft Horse because our genius stallion promoter here didn't even get the initials in the right order. Its NASDHA. 

At any rate, NASDHA is another of these Color based registries that have little to no basis for registering horses except for color standards. They DO however have somewhat of a 'breed standard', though when you are accepting horses based on their color, you tend to have a wide variety of horsey body types to choose from. As long as the horse has draft blood and has spots, they'll still take it in. 

Now I will freely admit that some of their stud book stallions aren't that bad looking. Some are downright GORGEOUS. 

Take this guy. 

You wanna talk about jaw-dropping, drop what you are doing and watch this guy go by, drool worthy horse gorgeousness! 

Thats Beckers Canadian Commander, or "Commander" as they refer to him. He's located at C&A Farm in Winchendon, MA. They have a video of him working very, very, well under saddle. 

NOW THAT is a stallion. That horse is stallion QUALITY. The guy above in comparison? Big Jakey there couldn't hold a candle to Mr. Mane-Nearly-To-His-Knees-And-*GASP*Actually-Being-Ridden-And-Showed. This just proves that you can actually own a stallion, RIDE HIM, DO SOMETHING WITH HIM, instead of him being a pasture ornament and being a waste of space and air! 

Speaking of pasture ornaments, FFFS #2 was re-listed today. (Sorry for the long rant before I get to the stallion. It had been a long week.) Turns out she almost had a buyer for him. How very sad for him, I really hope he finds somewhere that will geld him, and give him a LIFE outside of a pasture! (Yes, it is possible to geld a 22 year old stallion. You just need a vet that understands how to do it properly, so it doesn't stress the old guy out too much.)

Have a good weekend everyone. See ya back on monday!

So what happens when a Big Name Trainer CAN'T train a horse?

So what happens when a Big Name Trainer CAN'T train a horse?


This question in and of itself is very interesting. See BNT's are supposed to be able to train any horse. Thats why they are a BNT. 


The BNT I am currently referring to is Mr. 2009 Unanimous National Champion Half Arabian Western Pleasure Open. *Whew* Thats a mouthful.  I'll shorten that very long name to simply BNT. (His name is Joe Reiser, btw, for those of you in the arabian/half arabian western pleasure circles.) His website is full of anecdotes about how when he was a boy, he'd dream about being like the riders that got the big wins. Thats just wonderful... I wanna know your training philosophy. (Note to Joe... You don't have the words "Natural Horsemanship" anywhere on your site, nor do you have anything up for sale aside from some shirts, jackets, and hats (amongst other apparel items) that have your barn logo. You get brownie points for that from me. If there were anything remotely resembling a carrot stick you would immediately have gotten thrown to the wolves here. Show me pictures of horses in training. Show me more pictures of your barn, stables, and pastures than just this one.)


(OT again, but my word, does that barn just scream out BNT or what?)


Now, really I'm not here to rag on our BNT today, 'cept for maybe a little bit. He's not so much the focus, though he does play a very major role in todays ad. I know very little about this guy, and from his website, though some of its not finished, it looks ok. At least there aren't any pegasus' or bible quotations on it. Its pretty strait forward and professionally done. It just needs to be finished. I wanna see on their horses for sale page what they say about their horses!


The reason he made it to this blog is because of this ad. 



Now, he's not the one behind the ad. The owner of the horse offered wrote the ad up. 


Lets see what it says; "Registered Half Arabian. Registered Name: LOTTA MOMENTUM (barn name "Oprah"). Her sire is black arabian stallion Momentum NA (Nationally accredited western pleasure), Dam was AQHA LottaChocolate Power, who has amazing western and halter bloodlines. She has been in training with Joe Reser of Setting Sun Training Center in Wakarusa, IN since Dec.2009 and has been under saddle approx. 60 days. She has a sweet personality, great size (15.1 and growing) and bone density. She is destined to be notch western horse, possibly even halter. She is SWEEPSTAKES NOMINATED."

Ok, that all sounds fine. Horse is decently bred, has a great show career ahead of her, everything is going well looks like.





Lets see what it says next; "Price has been reduced from $9500 from $1500 for a quick sale due to the following reasons: Oprah has amazing potential, HOWEVER ... her training isn't going as smoothly as we'd like."

Oh boy! The fun begins! First... thats one HELL of a major drop in the price. 


Second... "Her training isn't going as smoothly as we'd like." That just begs to ask the obvious questions. Why not? What happened? Is this a case of the owner being told 'off' by the trainer because they got too annoying? Is there something wrong with the horse? Inquiring minds want to know here!





We find out in the ads next lines; "She hates to be clipped. Her confidence is lacking, I would not describe her as a brave horse. Recently she has taught herself to throw herself over backwards to get out of working (I know ... lovely). She needs a patient, firm, experienced rider/trainer to take her further. Up for the challenge?! She'll be a good horse someday just not under my ownership.:) "

OH WOW. 


So, BNT can't get this mare, which HE started, to stop flipping over, which is a habit she developed while in training with him. What the hell was this guy, or most likely his assistants, doing to this mare during 'training' that she decided to flip over to escape working? Why couldn't the BNT or his assistants, once they saw the problem starting, immediately take steps to correct it? And whats with the confidence comment? A MAJOR part of groundwork training is instilling confidence in the horse. That didn't happen here? Why Not? The clipping comment... eh, thats the only one I'll let slide. Plenty of horses dislike clippers, and never get over it. Its not a deal breaker for me.


But the flipping? Thats one heck of a serious training issue. Its not a behavior issue, because she learned it during her training with the BNT. They allowed it to happen.


HMMMMMM. Brings me back to my original question.

So what happens when a Big Name Trainer CAN'T train a horse?

Now, to play devils advocate for a minute, the best of trainers will get horses that simply cannot be 'fixed'. They are too scared, too traumatized, too set in their ways, whatever the reason is... and once the trainer has given it his/her best shot, the only thing left to do is go back to the owner and admit they simply can't do anything else for the horse.


Whether or not BNT has or will done this I will never know. I'm just going off of what this ad reads, and it sure sounds like owner is more than a bit unhappy that her "Black Beauty" can't be ridden. Instead of her dream horse she gets a mare that has figured out "I don't get rode if I rear and throw myself to the ground." NO wonder she sounds a bit unhappy in her ad!


BUT>>>>THIS is now where I start having even more problems with this ad than the seller admitting the horse flips after just 60 days of training. 


She goes on to state; "Please don't ask to ride her, I don't want to pay anyone's medical bills."

*Sigh*. So you will market her as a decent future show mount, yet you won't let anyone try her out because she flips. Ok, I get that you don't want anyone to get hurt, that makes sense to me, but... 


I'm of two minds here on this one. I showcased this ad because of the flipping after less than 60 days of training at a BNT barn. Yet... if the seller didn't disclose it in the ad publicly, she'd get flamed for it by those saying she's not disclosing all the information on the horse.


On the other hand, BY disclosing the information, you can't very well in the same ad claim that the horse might be a great mount for someone "someday"!  YOU DON"T KNOW that the person you sell her too will A) know what to do to correct the flipping issue, or B) have the money and brains to send her to someone that would know what to do. If BNT can't correct the problem... well then there's a serious problem here isn't there. There are some really, REALLY good problem horse trainers that can and do deal with this type of vice. There are 3 times as many whackjobs that claim to do the same thing, and screw the horse up worse than it was to start with. How does one tell the difference? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is a whole 'nother blog topic. 


So what does the seller do? I actually think she was right to list the flipping in the ad. It will hopefully scare off the ones that wouldn't be equipped to deal with it, and she just might be savvy enough to weed through the ones that think they are, but aren't. By telling people they can't ride her in the test... if the BNT wants to take a commission on the sale of the horse (No idea if he is or not, just throwing it out there for the topic's sake), he will certainly make sure one of his assistants will be present during the showing of the horse, and if necessary, they should ride, or at least work the horse on the ground.


The horse should be sold with the flipping very prominent in the sales contract, so the buyer knows exactly what he/she is purchasing. That way, when the new owner does take possession of the horse, the seller is covered if / when the new owners get hurt. Beyond that, there really ISN'T much more the seller can do. So, while on the surface this might seem like a 'worst of', it really is the best the seller could do with the situation she was handed. 


(I still would like to know the back story on how the mare became a flipper...)


I was discussing this very ad with the friend of mine that sent it to me and she was telling me about a horse she once knew that was also a flipper. If the gelding wasn't ridden every day, and thats 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, the very next time you went to get on him, without fail, he'd go over. They never figured out why he did it, nor ever got rid of the vice. Its a dangerous habit, and this horse will never, ever, be 100% safe to ride. 


As an interesting side note, I just discovered another ad by the same seller, so maybe its not just this situation that is driving her decision to sell the black mare. Shes got another Half-Arabian Buckskin Pinto Mare up as well. 


Who knows... maybe she saw something, heard something, or was so pissed off that they caused her mare to become a flipper that she decided to get out of horses entirely.

WTF Wed: The "Paint Mare Quarter Horse"

This ad was listed in the comments by Zanthia a few days back, and its too perfect for our second WTF Wed. 

Ad Text: The horses name is Tator. Ofcourse it's your choice to keep that name or give him a new one! He's 4 years old, very calm, mostly broken. Gets along very well with other animals of all kinds. Great with children. My 4 year daughter can ride him bare back with no problems. I've ridden him numerouse times. He's a very very good horse. Loving, calm, and friendly are the best words to describe this horse. Great personality. Most importantly in my opinion, he's good with young children. 

Not much more is needed to break the horse. Maybe 1 month at most to finish breaking him. If you're interested please call or e-mail me for location and details. Thanks. 

And cause you know its coming... What would be the PERFECT Picture for this wonderful kids horse whos owner apparently can't tell if its a MALE or a MARE... 

Are you ready? 

BUT OF COURSE its a 4 year old without a helmet and without anyone holding the horse!

Why would it be otherwise?

Today its not so much a "What The F" ad as it is a "WHY The F" ad. 

Because, honestly, if you don't even know the difference between what a MARE is and a MALE is... WHY THE FUCK did you even own a horse to begin with? You obviously know what "PAINT" is, is it that much harder to pick up the Horses for Dummies book and read the chapter on what a female horse vs a male horse is called? 

I love the comments Zanthia said: 

-WTF is a "Paint Mare Quarter Horse" and HOW is it a male mare!?
-His only braggable quality is the fact that you can change his name!
-He's only "mostly broke" and yet is being ridden by a helmetless 4 year old with no tack and no one holding her...

That just says it all to me!

I Think They Got This One Backwards...

One would think that when choosing between an un-broke, un-handled yearling and a broke, easy to handle adult mature horse for sale purposes... especially in todays horse market... most people would want the mature broke horse. When offering these two for sale, one would think that you'd have better luck getting money for the older trained horse vs. the younger UN-trained one. 


Well, apparently thats not always the case. 





Ad Text: Beautiful Mare and her 1 1/2 year old Filly. If Momma goes baby goes...will sell baby only! Mare is broke and gentle although well spirited..Baby is not broke. I managed to get a halter on her when she was younger, she is outgrowing it and I cannot get it off, need someone who can handle this type of situation to get her soon. Mare is 5 yrs old. I am North of Muldrow about 45 minutes. xxx-xxxx





Mom is a halfway decent mare herself. I gotta admit, while she's not perfect, I might not kick her out of my barn. The one glaring thing I can see about mom is one heck of an upright shoulder. But she's got a nice hip, a great shaped head, and would, with some conditioning, probably make a great trail horse. In the picture below either she's pregnant again or she's got a very big hay belly - but she's a pretty typical quarter horse type mare. No idea if either of these two are registered, my guess is mare might be, but filly is most likely not.



So deal is Easy Going Mom is Free, yet the un-broke and I will admit CUTE - can't even get the halter OFF filly is $400? Something is seriously backwards here. 


Yet the sad part is this is a very easily fixable situation - for a person that has a clue what to do - which obviously the seller DOESN'T. 


Grab the mare, cause if the mare goes, the baby will, right? Put said mare into some sort of pen or semi-enclosed area. 


Start round penning MOM. Don't even bother trying to remove the fillies halter first, or even bother with the filly. The mare, if she IS broke, will hopefully have had some sort of round pen training on her, and will know what to do. If the person doing the round pen gets Mom to follow them around after a few minutes... guess what... eventually the baby will get a clue. 


Herd psychology in this situation is pretty easy to figure out. The filly will learn not only from watching the way mom reacts, but will learn from the human as well. Filly is not so much scared of people, she just hasn't yet been shown that people are cool. Her few experiences with people have been (and I'm going out on a limb here)... maybe at birth where she might have been handled, or not - depending on if she was born inside or outside; but at the very least when they put the halter on her. That much is fact from the ad itself.


That might have been "traumatic" for the filly, (enter sarcasm here) depending on the so called skill of who did it. Sure doesn't sound like the owner/seller has much YOUNG horse handling skills. (Which begs to ask the question why breed if you don't have a clue? Oh right...cause baby horses are KUYTE!!!!) I say "Traumatic" as in she was forced to go near the scary humans and OMG they PUT SOMETHING ON ME! *envisions filly running away frantically to saftey of mom, who just ignores the filly. lol* (Ok, sorry, had to throw that in there.)


There is nothing wrong with this filly that she can't be handled. She just HASN'T been handled. There is a very big difference.


So, if one can manage getting her in the round pen with mom, she's very obviously going to do whatever mom does. So if mom is running around the pen at the direction of a *gasp!* human... while at first baby won't know why shes running too except MOM's doing it... within a couple of times she'll start to watch the human in the center and start responding to the human's body language. 


This isn't Parelli Round Penning. This is the good old fashioned get em moving forward, asking for forward motion, getting them to stop on their hindquarters, shifting their weight, rolling back, and again moving off of their rear. This simple exercise accomplishes so much and it is so underused. When Mom is asked to either stop and look or come in to the handler (depends on who you talk to which way is 'best'), she'll still drop her head and start licking and chewing. Then, most likely she'll start following the handler. Guess what. 


Baby will too.


Heck, if you could get the two of them in a trailer to a place that has a large enough round pen, you would be able to use the round pen as a temporary stall for the both of them, and you wouldn't even have to worry about how you are going to get baby to and from the RP. (Well other than her following mom.)


The next step would be to remove Mom, and start a process ALL foals have to go through ... its called WEANING. Obviously the current seller HAS NONE Of those skills, or they wouldn't be screaming for help in this manner.


Weaning is not the cruel, monstrous, horrible thing some of the "natural horsemanship" gurus would have you believe it is. Its a natural process that happens IN NATURE, in the wild herds. Mare has a foal, a month later usually gets pregnant again in the foal heat, nurses the baby by her side for the pregnancy, and around the end of it, starts gettin' real unfriendly towards the now yearling offspring. Of course the yearling doesn't like it! But eventually mom makes it clear that the 24-7 milk bar is Closed. Some mares will nurse the yearling and the new foal at the same time, but those are few and far between. Most don't have the patience for it. 


The very best thing for this filly, would be someone that can get her handled to the point where they can slip the halter off. A week, maybe 2 with round pen work, using food as a reward (No, I'm not referring to horse cookies...I mean no hay is given to the foal unless the foal does something to earn it. Something like be scratched on the neck. Or allow itself to be approached by a human. I've halter broken many foals in a very easy, quick, painless way doing it this way. Not all the foals food gets withheld, you feed half of their ration of hay in the am, and feed handfuls of it thorough the day in small amounts. I've even taught foals to stick their noses into the halters reaching for the hay this way. After a few days of this, they figure out really fast that being haltered is GOOD! They get scritches, and yummies! Life is no longer so scary! 


Well of course, there is a much faster, yet more expensive way of having some one good with a rope throw one round her and catch her that way, then have a very brave vet go in and give her a tranq... THEN take the halter off of her as she's happily in La-La land. Heck, if you are going to go that route, might as well then call a farrier out and have her hooves trimmed at the same time cause if they can't get near her to remove the halter, there ain't no way she's ever met a farrier!


A nearly 2 year old filly like this would take a bit more time to earn her trust, but it still can be done. And hey, really for $400 in this market... getting a broke mare you can ride and enjoy while working with the younger one...thats maybe not so bad of a deal after all!


(Thanks to Crow for this one!)

How Do I Send An Ad?

Thanks for all the ad suggestions I've gotten so far! I just got in from work, and haven't had a chance to look in depth yet, but I can throw this out there quickly. 


The best way to send in suggestions is simply to take a screen shot of the ad, including pictures, and email me the link and the pictures. 


I need at minimum- any pictures included with the ad (all of them!), title, and text. Even if you can't get the screenshot, if you send me that info, along with the ad link, I can dig out the rest. 


If you have never taken a screen shot before, there is a button on your keyboard called PrtSc. This is the "Print Screen" key. Just center the ad on your screen, from title of ad on down, and push the button. You won't see anything happen, but your computer takes the image of whatever your screen shows, and places it on the clipboard. 


Every copy of windows has Paint built in. Open up Paint, or Photoshop, or even word will work, (Paint is usually buried in the start menu under Accessories somewhere), and Control-V, or File>Paste. Viola! You have an image. No need to edit the image, unless theres something on your screen you don't want me to see... (but keep in mind my husband and I ran a computer repair business out of our living room for nearly 3 years, so we've seen pretty much anything one can have on a computer - both legal AND illegal!)


This is what you will see, or a version thereof. Click on the thumbnail for a larger picture.





See how I have at the top the title of the ad, but none of the craigslist links above? I don't need those. Also, see how it cut the pictures in half? My computer is tiny, its a little 10 inch netbook, so I often have to take two screenshots to get in the pictures at the bottom. If you can get it all in one image, thats great. If not, you can either right click and save them individually to your computer, or take a screen shot of them directly. I can get the pictures off a screenshot. Don't worry about editing the ad picture, I'll take care of that.


"Save As", name the image whatever you want (the ad title works well), and EMAIL it to me. Take the images of the screenshots and send them as attachments in the email.


clhorseads@gmail.com


Include the link to the ad as well in your email please. This way, if the ad doesn't get flagged, Its so much easier to copy the text instead of me trying to retype it out from the pictures, lol. When it comes to the absolutely atrocious grammar and spelling on some of these ads, sometimes thats not as easy as you'd think it is! 


As long as the attachments are clearly marked for what they are, I have no issues with sending me the image files as email attachments. 


Please remember though, I deal with only Craigslist ads. No equine.com, dreamhorse.com, or any other classified horse for sale ads. I am focusing only on Craigslist.


Off to check those links!

Update on a prior post / ad...

Remember "Sir Wincredible", the mucho-winning H/H halter gelding featured on day one of the two day HYPP rant?


Turns out he still hasn't been sold AND his asking sale price has been dropped AGAIN, down to $1800 from $8500. Ad is dated 3/18/10.






This poor gelding. SOMEONE that has a clue about HYPP needs to get this poor boy PLEASE before he ends up at the auction! 


They are also still trying to sell him as a beginner/"anyone" horse... WHY don't these people get the clue? Their market is dwindling. Less and less people are purchasing horses right now because they are luxury items. Granted most of us that own horses wouldn't like to think of them as such, but in reality they are. They cannot live without us, however we can live without them. Its a sad fact, yet very true. Add to the problem that this gelding is H/H, and its obvious his owners are quickly getting to the "dumping stage" by dropping his asking price yet again. 


I've known many many horses that stayed on the market a long time where their owners were needing to sell, but not desperate yet. The horse's price may drop some, but over $6000!? The owners just want to get rid of this guy, and its obvious that they are not willing to keep him much longer. The lower they drop the price, the wider the market they are attracting becomes, and yes, the more families you can attract into the barn as possible future owners. 


If the current owners were willing to make sure this guy goes to a decent home, they'd keep the price steady, or drop it a little. Taking him from $8500 to $1800 screams "GET HIM OUT OF THE BARN ASAP!" to me. They no longer care about this gelding, and are cutting their 'profits' out just to get him sold.

In todays market there is a HUGE difference between a horse selling for $8500 and $1800. With this guys show record on top of everything, he deserves to be in the $8000 range. $10,000 in IF winnings? My god! Just for THAT he's worth the $8000 price tag! So why the hell is he now $1800? One reason and one reason only. 


He's HYPP H/H.


Wanna bet that any people that go to see this guy aren't told about his H/H status other than he's H/H? The most current ad says he's never had an attack...thats like saying a live grenade is never going to explode. Total BULLSHIT. Even if its true and he hasn't.. YET... he will. Its inevitable. ITS WIRED INTO HIS GENES. HE CAN'T ESCAPE IT. And people are learning and starting to stay away from H/H like they are from this horse. The person that finally buys this horse will either not know about HyPP at all, or will simply not care and be in it to win.


I am wishing as hard as I can that this guy has a happy ending.