Re: [RC] "pound dog" mentality for horses? - Truman Prevatt
But I can find a lot of these "type" of horses for sale in the paper or
even at <shudder> the auctions - at least in FL. So if a person
can go get a great deal on a horse from these sources - then why go
spend prime dollar from a breeder? That's the question. From the piece
on NPR - the horse didn't do that well on the track and clearly must
not have done that well as a pack horse. He was bought by a smart rider
who saw the potential - independent of the fact he was for sell in the
paper for a thousand bucks.
I do feel sorry for "endurance breeders." We riders are cheap. There
are a lot of good horses out there so we don't have to spend a lot of
money. Many riders don't have the money to spend but want to
participate in the sport and thank goodness there are good horses out
there for them at a reasonable price. That is why this sport is growing
in popularity. It doesn't cost an arm and leg to get into and you
don't have to have a $25,000 horse or get looked down on by everyone
else involved. Not to even mention that while a lot of people ride
Arabs - they don't have to. Hell they can even ride <shudder>
mules:-).
I expect if you talk to the eventing breeders they are horrified with a
reject from the track TB that was bought from the newspaper on the
cheap beat out all their high buck specialy bred eventing horses and
managed to make the Olympic team. Probably as horrified as "endurance
breeders" that horses bought for a few bucks have won world
championships.
I'm not anti-breeder but in this sport it is where the rubber meets the
road that is important. You can't ride the registration across the
finish line and there are very few vets that I know that would not pull
because you show them the papers to convience them that horses in
your's line never get lame.
In athletics - human and equine the world is made up of Cinderella
stories.
Truman
Lif Strand wrote:
At 07:25
AM 9/4/2004, Truman Prevatt wrote:
I heard a blurb on NPR during the olympics
about one of the horses on the US eventing team. He an ex race horse,
worked as a pack horse and was picked up by the rider for about a 1000
bucks out of the paper. He turned into a world class eventer and
represented his country in the olympics.
Did the story tell what the breeding history of this horse was? Heck,
with good bloodlines, successful track racing and packing would be an
excellent conditioning background for an Olympic athlete. Did the
story tell about the thousands and thousands of former race horses and
pack horses that didn't make it to the Olympics, by the way?
Another Cinderella story!
-- "It is necessary to be noble, and yet take humility as a basis
"It
is necessary to be noble, and yet
take humility as a basis.
It is necessary
to be exalted, and yet take modesty as a foundation."
