December 28, 2012

I have been pony shopping for way too long now.  I am really burned out.  I have a pony to go try this weekend, and that is the only one on the horizon.  And I hate to say it, but I am not very excited to go.  I don’t really want to be disappointed again.  Which is so not like me.  I am much more of a positive person with the “it will be an adventure” attitude.  But I think I burned through all of that optimism.

So I am going this weekend, and I really hope she works out.  And for anyone that knows me or follows my blog, you might have noticed I said “she”.  Not being a fan of mares, I had originally restricted my shopping to just geldings.  But with my lack of success, I have opened up the criteria to include mares too.

I check all the Craigslist pages within a several hour driving radius of my home.  I frequent about six different horse for sale sites including Equine Now, Dream Horse, and Horse Clicks.  I peruse equine rescue sites.  I also check about a half dozen different regional Facebook horse-for-sale pages.  I have driven out and tried nearly a dozen different ponies, and have been to about a half dozen auctions at two different sale yards.  But the perfect pony, or even the semi perfect pony, still alludes me.

I have posted a few ISO (in search of) listings specifying my criteria.  My most recent one read:
“ISO, 13-13.2h solid built pony, must be under saddle, sound and willing to work.  Will be trained as an adult rider’s mounted games and all around non-show pony.  Under $1000 range.  Very size specific.  Please contact me if you have something you think might fit my needs.”

And you know what responses I get?
“I have a 14.1h mare, just backed, $3500”

And

“I have the perfect 14h pony but he is out of your price range”

Really not helpful and extremely discouraging.

I truly hope my new pony comes along soon.  Otherwise I might need to recruit Simon back to the team and take a break from pony shopping.