This is the second time I have purchased a horse through
the Roses to Ribbons program. The first
horse I purchased was five years old at the time. I very tall 17.2 mare named Morally
Flexible. Rally as we called her was
purchased to be a trail horse primarily for my husband. She proved wonderfully suited for this task
and loved her trail rides with either my husband, or myself aboard.
Last summer we left town for three weeks and took our two
horses, my thoroughbred Eliot (who was retired from race training after 25 days
showing absolutely no talent for running) and Rally to stay with my
dressage/eventing trainer while we were gone.
Upon our return, my trainer said that he thought Rally was the real deal
as far as an eventing prospect and he wanted to continue to work with her. We said yes and that has left us with an
empty stall.
As I am the organizer of the Roses to Ribbons Old
Fashioned Horse Fairs, I thought I should chronicle the journey that buying a
horse off the track turns out to be. I
was a little worried about writing the adventure as it unfolds. What if I couldn't manage the horse I picked out? I am far from the world's best horse
trainer. What if I have to admit publicly
that I failed the horse? That would be
very hard to do.
As everyone who has ever sat on a horse knows, failure is
only a step away so here is my story. Let's see where it goes.
I had put together the Roses to Ribbons Fair for Sam Houston
and in walking around the backside of the track, several nice horses had caught
my attention. One horse in particular,
Kissin Silk, a seven year old dark bay gelding seemed really sweet.
I was fortunate enough to meet up with a jockey who had
ridden Silk and said that he was a nice horse.
She said he knew his business and pulled hard on the track but he was
not a horse to buck (very important for me).
The most he had ever done was skitter sideways (I think I can handle
that).
When the horses were brought to the paddock for Roses to
Ribbons, Silk stayed calm and just looked around. I asked the groom handling him to jog the
horse for me. He jogged sound and didn't
get excited. I liked his movement, what
little I saw of it in those few steps.
He was very active with his hind end which will only help in the
dressage ring. Dressage and trail riding
are my goals for my horses.
Other people were also appreciating Silk's demeanor and
movement. I offered $1500 for him and
that was accepted. I had them take Silk out
of the paddock before anyone else might try to offer more for him.
Silk was mine and now I had to get him home. Because, in general, my life is crazy I was
leaving town the next day. I had to find
someone to get Silk off the track and park him somewhere until I returned a
week later. Fortunately, I found someone
I knew, Jose, who was running a horse that night and then hauling to Cameron
Texas. He would be happy to take Silk to
his barn and even ride him a few times for me while I was gone.
It was really hard to have a brand new horse and not even be
able to see him for a week. As soon as I
returned home, I hooked up to my trailer and made the run up to Cameron to see
what I had bought.
Jose brought Silk out of the stall, tacked up with a western
saddle. I watched as Jose got on him and
was really pleased to see that Silk stood quietly to be mounted. Jose rode him around the pasture and Silk
looked unsure of what he was supposed to do.
Silk was pretty sure that if you are being ridden you ought to be
galloping. Jose rode Silk in large
figure eights and Silk, with some confusion, complied. Jose then rode him up to me and asked if I
wanted to ride him.
As I am not the bravest rider in the world I wasn't really
sure what my answer would be but as he was my horse, I thought maybe I should
go ahead and ride him. They have a great
round pen and as I don't have one at home I thought this would be my best
chance to ride him.
I turned a bucket upside down to use as a mounting block and
Silk stood quietly while I mounted. He
was actually quite nice to ride. He has
a very balanced stride and he was very willing to walk, trot and turn on
request. He liked looking around like a
giraffe but as we were in the round pen it wasn't a problem. I rode him for about fifteen minutes and was
very happy with how he went.
Silk loaded easily into the trailer and we were on our way
home to Wimberley. We got to the house
and Eliot was overjoyed to have a new friend.
He and Silk hit it off right away.
The tough thing with an off the track horse is turning them
out for the first time. They can really
go nuts in their first turn out after having lived in a stall for so long. My husband and I decided to leave Eliot up in
his stall so there would be something to bring Silk back to the barn. We had already incarcerated the dogs, we
didn't need them involved with the turn out.
I turned Silk loose and he trotted off but didn't go
crazy. He stayed around the barn area
with periodic trots and canters to see his new home. My husband, Mike, then asked me if I had any
idea if he was easy or hard to catch. No
idea at all.
It turned out he was easy to catch and has settled into his
new barn routine well. His eating has
improved each day. I have added a new
supplement to his feed. It is a
polysaccharide formulation to help manage gastric ulcers, something nearly
every race horse has. I am hoping this
will help his transition from race horse to show horse and trail horse go a
little easier.
