What I learned while horse-shopping with a trainer

Iggy is the first horse that I've bought with the help of a trainer. Gadget I rode for roughly 6 months before buying him. I knew his quirks, knew he'd been lame with a stone bruise for several months, knew his fear issues, and I also knew what a solid citizen he was. I had a local vet flex him and trot him up and down the concrete aisle, and we declared him sound. It's actually kind of funny. Of course, as soon as I bought Gadget, he looked rein lame for months. I spent lots of time worrying about him, but eventually we got a better connection back to front and that particular issue disappeared.

Lovely 7 year old by Briar that we tried.

So I tried a few horses solo before heading to Holland with Ryan. I watched them be groomed, ridden, and then I got on and tried the horse. Afterward, I would feel the legs. That's it. 

Ryan checking a horse while being tacked.

So it was a bit of an education horse shopping with Ryan. While the horse was being prepped, Ryan ran his hands down each leg, and picked up each one. He then ran his hand over the back lightly and then with a bit more pressure sensing for back soreness. Every horse had a conformation photo taken of it without the saddle and each  was videoed while lunged/ridden. After we finished, we immediately made notes about the horse -- name, age, breeding, and impression. We also sort of kept a running ranking of horses, or I should say, Ryan kept a ranking. He ranked them by quality and then by "fit." And the fit part was big since I turned out to be a bit of a weenie getting on strange, young horses. If they gave any inclination of silliness, they fell drastically in my "fit" ranking. 

Keeping all of this information sometimes felt superfluous when it was a horse that did not immediately "wow" me. However, we had many conversations debating the respective merits of these horses and ones that I had not felt immediately love for would come back to the top of the list. One horse was little black mare by Jazz. She was 4 and very narrow, and her narrowness made me feel big on her even though she was 16.2. She had good movement, was super responsive, very well-schooled and had even been showed in a FEI 4 year old class. I felt very comfortable on her but got off feeling a bit "meh." However, in retrospect, she kept moving up my list because of her ridability and nice hind leg. 

Another horse we tried was a 6 year old at a big name sale barn. Ryan was shocked when we pulled through the gates and he recognized where we were, as he didn't think that I could afford anything there. (Where is the crying until you laugh emoji when you need it?!). So anyway, we are shown a 6 ear old that we are told is a brother to Dreamboy (I wish I would have asked if it was by the same dam or just by Vivaldi). Anyway, he was very well school with a change each direction. I got on and felt very at ease, but I needed a whip and spurs to keep him active. Ryan, trying to make sure we were actually looking for a potential GP horse one day) goes for the lunge whip to tap up this young horse from the ground while I'm mounted to see if he had any natural talent for the half steps. After warning Ryan not to get me killed, we gave it a whirl. The horse gave almost zero reaction to the whip. It was actually very telling. After pulling the saddle, we took some pictures and almost left without feeling his back. However, we felt what appeared to be almost a lump or tight band of muscle in the loin area where the back of the saddle would sit. After we were back in the car, Ryan said this barn had top riders and the horse had probably been schooled strongly to be made sharp, so if that was as forward and reactive as we could get him under saddle, we probably could not hope for much improvement if we bought him. He was crossed off of the list.

One of the prettiest horses that we saw. Big Danish gelding.

It was so nice to have someone confirm what I was feeling or educate me as to the potential that I could not see. I think we picked a good one. :)