Bad ideas for a Thursday afternoon, in sequential order:
1. Going on the nj-horse.com forum on my lunch break
2. Clicking on the "Horses and Ponies for Sale/Lease" thread
3. Finding several attractive and affordable jumper prospects
4. Emailing the owner to see if the horses are still for sale
5. Starting a thread titled "Looking for work-for-board situation"
Commence daydreaming.
Now, someone please tell me why I just did that? Granted, owning a horse has been a life-long dream since I was about…um…7 years old. The problem with horseback riding is that it is, if you’ll pardon my French, undoubtedly the most f*cking expensive sport in the world. It’s one of the few sports where you have to continuously feed (and likewise clean up the excrement of) your equipment. Your equipment is also prone to various veterinary disasters including but not limited to colic, bacterial and viral infections, broken limbs, and numerous cutaneous assaults, (thanks to an inherent combination of curiosity and low IQ). Add on that the price of tack, blankets, grooming supplies etc., all tailored for a class of individuals with unlimited disposable income and a penchant for monogramming, and you’ve got a hobby that will suck the financial life out of you faster than you can say “Custom-made, hand-stitched, Italian leather bridle.”
Horseback riding is also beyond time-consuming, especially if you do it the right way. These guys need exercise a minimum of twice a week to keep them sane, but more like 3- or 4- times a week if you want to keep them athletic. Exercising them takes an hour. Grooming and tacking them up takes half an hour. Untacking them and putting them out takes half an hour. And then there’s clean-up and commute time. We’re talking several hours a day, 2 to 5 days a week. Once you own a horse, you’re a horse-owner. That’s it. There’s very little time to be an author or a fitness fanatic or a violinist or anything else that might take up significant time to achieve, at least for us working folk. In other words, it's one of the biggest commitments you'll make in your life, and it's to a 1,000 lb partner that usually doesn't have the sense god gave a doorknob.
So if this entry sounds like a giant argument for why NOT to buy a horse…well…that’s the point of it. I’m trying to talk myself out of buying a horse by listing the various reasons that I could find myself eyeball-deep in shit, both literally and metaphorically speaking. But the problem with this approach is that I’ve been reciting this list in my head for years now, and every time I do it I find myself to be less convincing.
There will always be a myriad of reasons why I shouldn’t buy a horse. There will always be other places where the money would be better off going, and there will always be other things in life that are more worthy of my time. And yet, day after day, week after week, month after month, I dream of breaking and training and riding on my own terms – not on the terms of some client who is paying me, and not on the terms of some owner who is throwing me a pity ride. So who knows what will happen. Will there always be a reason to not buy a horse? Absolutely. But sometimes you gotta ignore your head and go with your heart. And my heart is telling me to get my butt back in the saddle – MY saddle - where it belongs.
Horseback riding is also beyond time-consuming, especially if you do it the right way. These guys need exercise a minimum of twice a week to keep them sane, but more like 3- or 4- times a week if you want to keep them athletic. Exercising them takes an hour. Grooming and tacking them up takes half an hour. Untacking them and putting them out takes half an hour. And then there’s clean-up and commute time. We’re talking several hours a day, 2 to 5 days a week. Once you own a horse, you’re a horse-owner. That’s it. There’s very little time to be an author or a fitness fanatic or a violinist or anything else that might take up significant time to achieve, at least for us working folk. In other words, it's one of the biggest commitments you'll make in your life, and it's to a 1,000 lb partner that usually doesn't have the sense god gave a doorknob.
So if this entry sounds like a giant argument for why NOT to buy a horse…well…that’s the point of it. I’m trying to talk myself out of buying a horse by listing the various reasons that I could find myself eyeball-deep in shit, both literally and metaphorically speaking. But the problem with this approach is that I’ve been reciting this list in my head for years now, and every time I do it I find myself to be less convincing.
There will always be a myriad of reasons why I shouldn’t buy a horse. There will always be other places where the money would be better off going, and there will always be other things in life that are more worthy of my time. And yet, day after day, week after week, month after month, I dream of breaking and training and riding on my own terms – not on the terms of some client who is paying me, and not on the terms of some owner who is throwing me a pity ride. So who knows what will happen. Will there always be a reason to not buy a horse? Absolutely. But sometimes you gotta ignore your head and go with your heart. And my heart is telling me to get my butt back in the saddle – MY saddle - where it belongs.
EDITORS NOTE:
THIS is one of the horses that's for sale. 4 years old, and drop dead GORGEOUS. Priced at $2200. Repeat after me....I don't need a horse...I don't need a horse...I don't need a horse...
2 comments:
You need a horse. Just sayin.
:)
Oh my goodness, DO IT! I'm sure Brian will help out however you need him to.
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