And the winner is…
Posted by Bill on Jul 01 2008 at 04:12 pm | Tagged as: General, Horse Ownership Costs, Horse Lifestyle
If you’ve been faithfully reading our blog you know which horse we’ve selected. Mikki mentioned it in her last post. In case you missed it, here’s a recap.
Ever since Sinbad left, we’ve been looking for a replacement horse. We needed one anyone could ride and this new horse would become my regular every day horse while I work with Moonshine. Over the course of the last month or so we’ve checked out a total of four candidates: 1) Snowball, a cremello Tennessee Walking Horse, 2) Misty, a spotted Tennesse Walking Horse, 3) Romeo, an Appaloosa and 4) Cash, a spotted Tennessee walking horse. Misty was eliminated early due to inexperience and Cash and Romeo quickly emerged as the front runners. After vet and farrier checks, short rides, long rides, pacing the floor and scratching our heads, we decided we’re ready to make a selection.
Cash…AND Romeo!
A while ago, Shari told us that if you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself collecting horses. This seems to be true and here we are with FOUR horses. Here’s why we selected both: Cash makes an excellent gaited horse pair for Valentine, plus he has the paint markings I prefer. He’s a handsome fellow, easy to ride and not as tall as Valentine. But Romeo has barrel racing experience, is also easy to ride and gentle (he’s also handsome). I can learn how to barrel race on Romeo and he’s reserved and gentle enough for the Kid, who we’ve decided will be taking lessons soon.
So now we have a few new challenges:
1) The expense of feeding four horses
2) We just bought a two horse trailer. Since Valentine is so big, we’d need a new truck to get a bigger trailer.
3) We only have 3 horse stalls. We need to convert a storage stall.
4) Introducing two new horses to the herd. Romeo apparently is the herd boss in his current pasture.
So meet our two new horses:
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I’ll get some better pictures of them without riders.
Our horse world has just expanded! I think we have enough now, though. And on a side-note, our horse friend Shari just bought a big Tennessee Walking Horse that looks a lot of Valentine so it looks like we’ll be riding gaited a lot. More soon.
Congratulations! Chances are you’ll rarely need to move all 4 horses at once. You’ll be fine with your 2 horse trailer.
Wow! I have to say I’m both flabbergasted and thrilled. From “My First Horse”….to “My Four Horses” in such a short time.
I hope you won’t have to take second jobs and that the vet, equine dentists, farriers and the price of hay remains low for you in your area.
For us, that’s really the only thing stopping us, besides lack of extra stalls, from buying anymore horses.
It’s a good thing that you have pasture for your horses, too. Around here, in NM most horses are on dry lot and fed hay instead.
Still it would be great to have at least one more horse. But I’m grateful my neighbor has 3 horses so at least my horse has some buddies.
Romeo and Cash are both such handsome horses. I can see why you’d have such a hard time making a final choice. I know you’re going to have such fun with them and I hope you post more, now that they’ve joined your horse ranch. And I wish you luck in getting all those challenges worked out smoothly, too.
Contratulations!!
Thanks guys. To be clear, we’re not rich but we are fortunate enough to have a little land, a nice barn, a source for inexpensive hay and access to good veterinarian care (Mikki works for a vet office). I can imagine the price of hay alone would have kept us from having this many horses out west, not to mention the outrageous price of land in the Phoenix area when we left ($250,000 an acre). Our pasture isn’t in very good shape but hopefully we’ll be able to buy a tractor soon so we can bush-hog regularly and plant some native grasses soon.
I am glad y’all got both of them. Both of them are beautiful. I am sure everything will work out fine.
I think it may be time to change the title of your blog!!
Good point Katie. Although…Valentine is our first horse, Moonshine is my first horse, Cash is my first Tennessee Walking Horse and Romeo is my first Appaloosa.
Wow! I have you guys on my bookmark bar… I click and look every few days, and all winter, nothing much was happening… then things were moving along at a nice pace… then I go on vacation for two weeks and WHAM! You double the size of your herd! Sounds like something I’d like to do. Congratulations on your two new beautiful horse. Glad the kid’s going to ride too.
Good luck getting everyone acquainted!
Your new additions are striking, Cash for his spots and the emu blaze, and Romeo for his–err–spots! If you keep this up, you will have a collection of horse breeds, each more striking than the last. I’m happy for you!
I’m new to your blog and am enjoying reading it! But I have to say this entry terrifies me. I’ve been thinking of a second horse so I can have one for my daughter and guests to ride - but what if I end up with three more? This is why I had to stop volunteering at the animal shelter! I’d be up to 17 dogs!
They are beautiful and I look forward to hearing all your adventures with your first FOUR horses.
Winter
http://horsecentric.blogspot.com/
Nice site and nice blog. Lots of great info. Congratulations and I hope you have lots of fun with your horses!
Cathy