[RC] Buying horses over the Internet - Barbara McCrary
One of our daughters, her husband and I all bought horses from the same
ranch in Montana, sight unseen except for homemade videos. The daughter's
horse was the first, and she saw him advertised on an Internet auction
site. We are all happy with them. I e-mailed the seller for some
months before I bought mine, as I wanted to "get acquainted" with the
sellers. They were old-time ranchers and had been breeding horses for
ages. His father also bred horses for the Army Remount during WW2. I
came to trust their word. The result is the horse I have recently
described as being sensitive. I have yet to enter him in a ride, as I've
spent nearly two years legging him up and training. Since he was a
prairie-bred horse, our forest with huge trees have been real challenge to
him. He's done more climbing and more negotiating downed trees and limbs
than.......well, they just don't have such things in east central Montana where
he came from. I won't know whether he'll be a good endurance horse until I
try him out on a few rides, but then.....unless one buys a proven horse, one
doesn't know whether he's going to be a good one until one tries.
I found
I could judge the horse by the way he moved in the video almost as well as
seeing him in person. The price was right, the transportation to CA was
not all that expensive, and I'm happy with the horse. I didn't have a
pre-purchase vet check because I trusted the seller. That's something you
can't always do, but I felt I am a fair judge of people, and I trusted
these folks.
