I think it's strange that people will have their horse in training and never come out to see it. This is a "free" horse--and believe me, no untrained horse is free--that the barn owner is apparently charging the owners $700 a month for training and board. Farrier told me he's getting $400 to train the horse (a reasonable fee), and in 30 days already has her w/t/c and stopping like a champ. He's doing a pretty good job with the little filly. They have signed up for another month of training (which in any other case would be wise). What I don't get is, full care board is $260. So what's the other $40 for? Hmmm.
Anyway.
I can't imagine these poor people know much about horses, because their "free horse" unfortunately looks like this up front:
Oh dear.
The first time the farrier had this horse out for training, tied to a post, I literally did a double take and said, "Tell me her front end doesn't really look like that!" I thought she must have just been standing funny, but no, she is so pigeon-toed her feet almost point at each other when she's squared up. This conformity is so bad she already has massive amounts of sidebone forming, her fetlocks are trashed--and she's only 4 years old.
So here's what I don't get.
Besides the obvious fact that this poor sweet animal should never have been created in the first place, since this kind of conformation fault is most certainly hereditary...
Why, oh why, when this filly came in, did no one tell the unsuspecting and largely clueless owners that they had an animal unlikely to stay sound in ANY kind of work for more than a couple of years?
Why did no one mention to them that their $1400 in training could have bought them a nice, well broke, registered horse that can already do everything they hope for?
Oh yes--I know...
Because that way no one makes any money.
I want to make this clear though. I don't fault the farrier one bit.
He has been contracted out by the barn owner to do the training. He has neither met, nor spoken with the owners directly, nor have they come to see any of the training sessions, nor does he have any way to contact them--except through the barn owner.
What a mess.
And the poor filly is sweet as can be--of course. If her legs had been straighter she most certainly would have been worth every dollar of training put into her.
But in my opinion, it is cruel and hastens the breakdown of a horse with this kind of deformity to ride it at all.
In my opinion, she should be made as comfortable as possible with corrective trimming and a nice pasture for as long as she can live without pain.
But as a riding horse, I don't see much of a future here. It's true she doesn't stumble--yet--but it's only a matter of (short) time before she breaks down completely.
What a shame.
In other news, I rode the beast after more than a week off, and she was good. Unfortunately when I got her back to the tie rack afterwards her pulling back issue resurfaced. I decided to just leave her tied for 30 minutes, during which time she had several more episodes. She'd get to the end of the rope, suck back and pull pull pull, almost sitting down like a dog with her hind legs braced under her, realize she wasn't getting anywhere, and come forward again. It was actually fairly calm, if you can ever describe a 1,300 pound animal pulling with all its weight on a metal post as "calm". This time, everything held fast, and after 6 or 7 times, she was done with that, even licked and chewed after she gave into the pressure. I would feel worse for her (since surely it must hurt to do that)--except all she has to do to avoid the pain is not pull back. I still think (thanks to the Hancock in her) that it will take another few sessions of this to cure her completely. But it's a start.
Chevy has more than a few conformation faults of her own, but at least all 4 feet point in the same direction--forward!
Does this picture make my head look big?
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