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Re: [RC] Managing 'toomanyhorses...' - heidiSadly, we felt that if no one rides the extra horses, loves them, gives them a "job"...Arabs do like a job...then they should be sold to someone who will. If I love them that much I do what is best for them. Or they can just become "pets." But if they are still young I can't stand to see them standing in the pasture doing nothing. This is the hard lessons my daughters have had to learn about extra horses at our place. They cost a fair amount of money to keep them and if you cannot afford them all, then they all sort of suffer a little bit. You end up not giving them the top care you want cause your finances get low. We just could not afford extra horses. I agree that idle healthy horses of riding age are not the happiest of horses, most times. It IS more fair to let them "get a job." That said, being a breeder, our situation is a bit different. We REALLY have "too many horses" in a whole different sense, as we have a battery of breeding stallions, hordes of broodmares, and younguns of various ages growing up, in addition to a small handful of geldings being ridden (ironically for someone else, as we just parted with the last of our young geldings to an endurance home). It is absolutely essential in coping with this many horses to have a spouse who also appreciates and understands horses and is willing to share the necessary deprivation. We DO have a mortgage--but it is not to pay for any creature comforts (such as a house!) for us--it is to provide land and pasture for the horses. (Our house, such as it is, is a geriatric doublewide that we bought for $5000 and moved onto the property for another $3000.) It helps that hubby is a super-fixit man, and that I have a few capabilities in that department as well--we rarely have to call plumbers, electricians, etc., and we build most of our improvements (such as they are) ourselves. FWIW, many endurance women delight in introducing me to their non-horsey husbands--and telling them how many horses *I* have. As the poor fellows recover from fainting, their wives smile and pat them on the shoulder and say, "Dear, aren't you so HAPPY that I only have 3?" (Or 5, or 8, or 15...) Heidi (happily DOWN to 50 before winter...) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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