- Andalusian
- Grey
- Gelding
- 12 years
- 15.3 hands
Sad sale of a horse i imported for my company back in Nov 2017. He is an incredibly well bred chap, talented for dressage but a long tale of woe now forces his sale. At the last time of riding him at covid lockdown he had everything in place to make a top dressage horse; all lateral movements, 2 tempi lead changes, pirohettes, piaffe, passage, etc etc etc. He's an extremely talented chap, BUT, here comes the BUT.... After covid lockdown i have not been able to get him back into work so where he was upto pre-covid is now the dusty remnants of where he is at now, plus a few extra issues I need to explain. Its ALL below in great detail so you can decide if you think he may be for you or not:
He is a P.R.E. and i imported him as a stallion. He was EXTREMELY stalliony and would attempt to bite almost constantly so i took him to Chapelfields vet clinic for castrating. At the same time as castrating him i asked them to do his teeth (a rasp off) and check his breathing as i noticed when eating off the floor he would make dry gurgling sounds. The endoscopy revealed no problems, he 'displaces his soft pallette' they said, and was no issue. He makes no noise during work. Once returning home from the clinic the biting subsided however he still will nip on occasion especially if you are new to him and if he is fresh. After he recovered from the castration i found him very difficult to bit. He would flatly refuse to open his mouth and i tried all sorts from treats to honey, rubber mouthpieces, happy mouth, etc etc you name it. It got better but he still is very unwilling accept the bit. If you rush him he becomes anxious and bargy, it takes patience and kindness and eventually he will allow you to gently pop it in. I have never clanged his teeth and he willingly opens his mouth when unbridling so work that out! Ive spoken to other horse people and no-one has seen anything like it before. I broached this with Chapelfields who settled by giving me compensation.
So to tack up he is fine apart from the bit issue. He is still a bit stalliony and bargy but when in familiar surroundings this is less. He has always been buddy sour so taking his friend away and leaving him alone in the stable he will literally try to climb out unless a person is there to try to comfort him. He is OK to lead away from his buddy. He is good with the vet and fine to load but has not been in the horsebox since end 2017. He is usually OK with the farrier but can have his moments; if he's fresh or his friend is taken away then he can get upset and become bargy and frantic. He also will try to snatch his foot away but giving him the sharp "AHH" stops that. I have clipped him a few times pre-covid and he was as good as gold. To shampoo etc it's the same as shoeing.
To ride. When he recovered from the vet trip i started light riding in the menage and hacking down the lanes. He loves working in the menage and will happily offer piaffe, passage and a trot for a 10. On mounting you need to 'get on and get gone', or he becomes nadgy and nappy. Once when hacking a sheep had got caught in wire and suddenly started thrashing around as we rode past it. It must have scared the living daylights out of him because from then on he grew more and more nappy hacking off the premises to the point he would stop dead and then start rearing at any situations he felt triggered by. He will stop and spin, go sideways or backwards into ditches to avoid going forwards. I would be able to get him a point but then he would do the bit chomping and go rigid, and simply flatly refuse to go forwards. If i could get him past then sometimes he would almost bolt past the scary thing (whatever it would be) in a flurry of skid marks and sparks! I tried the endless patience and pats tactic, the come on dont be silly, and everything else inbetween. The moment you pressure him it gets ugly very fast, but giving him pats just makes him more tense and anxious and i found myself going backwards more than forwards! I must say he was always OK with cars, bigger lorries etc were either OK-ish or triggery. This whole melt down thing he does never improved to a place i felt safe hacking alone, even when hacking the same roads he's been down 50 times. I tried going out with the husband on a bike to cycle in front where it became too dangerous me going in front and actually this worked to a point, but was unpredictable and the problem was always there for the next spooky thing to freak him out. Sadly he never became safe enough to hack alone and then covid hit and i roughed him off and turned him out. He's been kept out in the paddocks since and brought in when the weather is grotty.
I'm an old lady with brittle bones, and to be brutally honest i don't enjoy riding him. After covid was over i was beset with injuries and travel with work, that I never managed to get him started properly again - it was so stakkato; one week riding then 2wks off, 3days on, 3wks off to a point it was no days riding and all days off! As time went by I lost trust in him to ride him in safety. He's simply too much horse for my tiny frame and in so many ways. So since covid he's been a pasture pet keeping my old rescue Lusitano company. I occasionally do some baby loosejumping and grids in the menage and he loves that. He'll happily motor around and ping over fences all by himself then come over for scratchies.
I am finding two horses an increasing burden as i grow older and if i am honest i feel utterly terrible that i have such a gifted but flawed horse sat in a field bored out of his brains. He always wants fuss and interaction and im just not the right fit for him. He's super intelligent and young-enough still to go and do something else than be lumbered with me in such an unfulfilled way. So if you think you are the right person to take him on, please message me. I have put a price of £10k in the advert, but i accept he is extremely hard to value now.