“Hey Girly, did you know your trailer isn’t properly hitched to your vehicle?”
Hmmm, I reckon there’s no better way to be identified as an amateur horse person than someone saying that while pointing at the back of your car….
It’s even more cringeworthy when the pointer-outter is the person you’re hoping will sell you your ‘dream horse’ and let you load it into that very same trailer 😳
The truth is – I hadn’t noticed the trailer was hover-boarding behind the car because I’d been too busy daydreaming for the past two hours in the car.
The whole way there, I’d had my eyes on the road but my focus had been completely dedicated to the horse movie in my head, where I was the main character.
Even still…an hour or so later, I was blissfully grinning as we pulled out of their driveway with the trophy horse, Flapjack safely secured in the back.
Only this wasn’t a trophy horse…
It was the start of a butt-kicking saga of what happens when good people make bad horse buying decisions.
A few nights earlier, I’d looked up from behind my computer and blurted “OMG guess who’s for sale?”
And without even waiting for Anthony to respond, much less get on board with the idea – I was messaging the owners and arranging a time to ‘come and see’ the horse.
Only, when you bother to hire a horse trailer and arrive with a glove box full of $50s- you’re not just ‘coming to see him’… You’re coming to take the damn thing home.
And that day nothing, not even and a spooky, kicky horse that was awful to ride was going to convince me to deviate from those damn daydreams that had been playing in my head.
It had been over 20 years since I’d ridden competitively and I’d decided that this horse would be the one on which I’d make my triumphant return. His name was Flapjack and I’d first set eyes on him about 6 months earlier at my agistment property, (which is a boarding barn for my sisters in the States).
He was a jet black Clydesdale cross, with a big white face and matching white socks. I was obsessed from the moment I saw him.
Of course I didn’t notice his poor conformation or the fact he had a slightly serial killer look in his eye… it was his blackness, his whiteness and his chunkiness that had captured my attention.
To my sense of logic, the flashy colours equalled pretty photos and satin ribbons. While the chunkiness seemed suitable for the 30 kilos I’d put on since I last ridden a horse.
At pushing 90kgs, I was unlikely to be producing pretty pictures astride a leggy thoroughbred and that’s exactly what I had sitting in the paddock… but I couldn’t ride my rescued mare anyway so I didn’t need to worry.
Rhonda, the sweet but completely broken thoroughbred mare had been my ‘gateway drug’ back into the horse world. I’d bought her from the online kill pens a few months earlier and unsurprisingly she was nothing like the description.
Instead of being a 12 year old stock horse, she was a 20+ broken down thoroughbred broodmare.
Anyway, she was the one I’d be tending to at the agistment farm as I watched Flapjack be ridden around the property. I’d stare on wistfully as he was ridden around the property and occasionally popped his glorious white socks over jumps.
So I daydreamed and I daydreamed hard.
A horse like him was exactly what I needed to once again participate in the horse world, to make other horsey friends and chase those shiny ribbons.
So finally when I finally got to ride him, it seems I was paying much more attention to the movie that had been playing in my head, rather than the actual horse underneath me.
Also, it hadn’t helped that his ‘For Sale’ advertisement had included a photo of him jumping a cross country fence because I’d firmly inserted myself into that image. That’s right folks, despite not riding AT ALL for 20 years, I thought it would be a mere formality before I was out and about galloping around cross country courses again.
And with the delusion firmly implanted in my head, a few hours later I was writing a ‘Welcome to the Family’ post for Facebook.
For the first few days, things went according to plan.
I admired his blackness and his whiteness while I brushed him and thought of important things like what combination I should choose for our cross country colours.
And anytime anyone would ask about the new horse I’d gloatily jump straight to the bit about him being black with white markings and wait for them to respond with amazement and… hopefully a touch of envy.
But as the weeks wore on, when people asked me what I planned to do with him, I’d try and circle back to the blackness and the whiteness – because, in all honesty everything else wasn’t going so well.
Unlike his previous owner who’d been able to take him out by himself and do all the fun stuff (while I looked on adoringly from behind my wheelbarrow of poo), when I was aboard this horse I couldn’t even get out of the gate.
Not even close.
Sometimes on the days that I was feeling brave, I’d do a very, very slow walk around the house, where he’d invariably throw me off, because apparently being more than 8 metres from his paddock was a challenge he was not yet ready to accept.
After that, I barely rode him at all… and as the weeks of Summer ticked by, my initial feelings of skin tingling optimism were replaced with dread and dismay.
Aside from our new little farm, Flapjack was one of the first purchases Anthony and I had made together and I felt like I was letting him down. Instead of making an enthusiastic return to the equestrian world and making the most of our new farm, I was constantly coming up with excuses about why I didn’t want to ride.
It wasn’t just about riding either… More than once when I’d be about to catch Flapjack, he’d spin around and I’d see those enormous clydesdale feet come within inches of my face. It was truly terrifying and certainly sent a clear message.
Seeing as I was just dipping my toe back into the horse world, it was easy enough to dip my toe right back out again. And over the entire summer of 2017, I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t make any friends, I didn’t join a riding club or even go for a lesson.
I just buried my head in the sand and did what I always did when things got awkward, which was to busy myself with work and drink too much wine.
Crunch time came when I summoned the courage for a ride one morning. We were walking through a gateway when Flapjack took off bucking repeatedly until he catapulted me into a barbed wire fence.
Incredibly, I collected the shreds of my bravest pants (bearing in mind, there was a fair bit of pant still draped on the barbs of the fence) and remounted to ride the horse home.
And once home, I went straight inside to message his previous owners to see if they wanted him back.. Which despite me only buying him 3 months earlier (and them imploring us to return him to them if it ever ‘didn’t work out’) they were not interested at all.
Which was not only inconvenient, it left me in a pretty perplexing situation because I had a horse I never wanted to ride again and suddenly, desperately I wanted gone.
However, without being able to ride him – I had no idea how I’d get him ready for sale or even show him to potential buyers.
Furthermore I didn’t want any other potential schmuck that was blinded by the black and whiteness to ride him either. Even with legalities aside, I couldn’t bear the moral responsibility of having him pole drive some poor eleven year old into the ground.
For a while I considered sending him to the Echuca Sales but I knew that wouldn’t work.
where the horses are yarded in individual pens and the auctioneer moves around giving a brief description of each horse before taking taking bids. It’s all over in less than a minute and there’s usually no communication at all between the buyer and the seller.
For a buyer the benefit is that horses are significantly cheaper than they would be with a private sale but of course the risk is higher. While the appeal for the seller, even though they receive a lower price – is that it’s a much more straightforward process with no chance of repercussions afterwards.
The sales are generally where unwanted horses are bought by the ‘dog food men’ but also the place where shrewd horse people go to pick up a bargain.
I knew that Flapjack would be fine, just like all the other ‘pretty coloured’ horses. He’d attract a schmuck’s price tag which would be over the budget of the dog food men.
Even still, there were two very real problems with my plan.
Firstly, a big ‘rescue’ movement had been sweeping recently and I figured the same kind of person who got caught up with ‘rescuing’ this big flashy fuckwit, would probably be the same kind of person who would get hurt by him.
And while that didn’t sit well with me, there was a bigger problem afoot….
The second problem was that the horse was so damn distinctive that everyone in the district would know that I’d sent him to the sales… And as horsey people like to do, there would have been mass pitchforking hysteria that I had sent him to certain death.
So after agonizing over some deliciously dramatic ideas like faking his death – I realised that I was just going to have to find the cash to send him to a trainer and hope that they could sell him for me.
And just when I was starting to hate this horse even more because I’d need a part-time job to pay for the privilege of getting rid of him, my phone beeped.
It was a woman from the old agistment property. She’d heard I was looking to sell him, and the next day turned up at my place for a ride.
This woman (we’ll call her Countess Von Intimidator) was one of those scary and capable girls who would ride broncos and hoon around bareback… Which is of no real consequence but it meant I was much less worried that she would leave shreds of her pants on the barbed wire fence.
Anyway, intimidating as always- she turned up, made me feel like a total failure and offered me half the asking price before saying loudly to the horse
“Poor baby… What’s happened to you”
To which I lamely responded “Well, um..I don’t think it was me. I couldn’t actually stay on him long enough to cause any problems”
While desperately wishing the ground would swallow me whole 😳
Sadly, said ground did not oblige so I just stood there shamefully feeling like The Horsewrecker 3000.
And after telling her I’d think about her paltry offer I decided to dial my childhood friend Nicola to hatch a plan. Unlike me, Nicola did not stop riding for twenty something years in the middle of her life. She was an exceptionally talented child rider, and just kept being bloody talented all the way through.
These days she’s a successful and well known show jumper and I had an idea…
“Hey Nic” I said “I’ve got a Clydie cross with a big white face and socks…”
Before pausing for a moment hoping to hear her excitement… But then I remembered that she, unlike me, was not a schmuck and was unlikely to be remotely interested in the blackness and whiteness of this horse.
I was correct.
She didn’t care less about his colour and once I explained my idea to truck the horse 1000kms away to her, where she could train out the kinks and sell him for a fortune in the safe anonymity of a new location.. She shot me down in flames.
“Seriously just take the money and get rid of him. You’re lucky to even have someone interested – and the longer you keep him, the more he’ll cost you”
“Every bucket of feed and every set of shoes will cost. Just cut your losses now and get that woman to come and get him before she changes her mind”
So the very next day, Countess Von Intimidator turned up to take him away. He nearly knocked her out as she was getting him on the trailer and we could hear him kicking all they way down the road.
And as I stood in the driveway seeing him off, there was no sadness and no disappointment.. Just a huge feeling of relief
“Thank fuck that’s over” I said out loud.
As I turned to walk into the house, with no intention of ever riding again.