​The Perfect Horse

​The Perfect Horse
By Gaye DeRusso
 
I have people contact me all the time looking for the perfect horse. Some of them take years looking for this horse. Some even go so far as to breed the horse or to buy a yearling. But even those horses will never be perfect. You might not like it's personality or it's gait once it is mature. 
 
By having this idea in your head that there is the perfect horse, you miss out on a lot of great horses, and you also lose precious time. We only have so much time on this earth, so wasting years in a search is a very sad thing. 
 
I have seen some search for years and by the time they found what they thought was the  perfect horse, they can no longer had time to ride or could not ride because of medical reasons, or their finances changed, and they kept the horse for a year and then sold it. All those years they spent searching, they could have been riding instead. 
 
If I had a horse that was close to what they were looking for, it was the wrong color, wrong breed, wrong sex, the wrong height, or the wrong age. Something was always wrong. I finally learned not to help these people and just to move on, because I could never get them what they wanted. They not only wasted my time and other seller’s times, but they wasted their own precious time with that search. 
 
There is no perfect horse. Every horse like every person will have good things and bad things about them. That is just the way life is, so you have to choose what works best for you and then work with the horse to make it into what you want, but never forget, no horse will be perfect.
 
If you want calm, never spooks, super safe, anyone can ride, that is usually a dull, lazy horse. It may not gait the best, and you may have to help it to gait. But it may gait very nicely if you just put in some effort.
 
It doesn't spook because it doesn't care about anything, even where it is going, so it may be trippy and not be surefooted. You may have to wear spurs because it is dull or carry a stick and  it may not be fast enough to keep up with your friends.
 
If it gaits perfectly then it may have something else wrong like it is  a spooky horse. It never goes out of gait but doesn't want to go down the road alone. Never wants to lead the ride or the opposite, may be bold and too fast, out of control in groups.
 
Maybe it is the most beautiful horse you have ever seen, but without consistent work it turns into a nut or becomes stubborn and won't leave the barn. Or it comes up with an injury or medical issue. 
 
Time is precious. I am not saying to not have a wish list but be realistic in what you are looking for. Your list should not have 20 things on it. It should have more like 6 things, temperament, trainability, experience, gait, gelding or mare and sound enough for the job you want it to do. 
 
I can tell you some of the most famous horses in the world were horses, that other people over looked. Ones that were found by accident or was all they could afford. But the owners put all they had into making it a great horse, that's why I love the story of Harry and The Snowman. That horse made him famous and was an old plow horse going to the glue factory yet he became a Grand Prix Horse. 
 
All the horses I have kept for personal horses, have been ones, that were not good sale horses or one’s people kept passing on. All my horses have been great horses. I never picked a color or height. I just let the universe decide what I should have. The one horse taught me everything about behavior issues and gaiting because he was all I could afford and due to him, I became a gaited trainer. The next one did all the expos and demos with me and gave so many lessons. He really was a great work horse for me and now is a great trail horse for a client. Now I have 2 more and they also have taught me many things and helped my business as well as provide hours and hours of fun on the trail. 
 
Sometimes you just have to get out of your own brain of all your wants and just get a good horse, then make it great. Otherwise, you may lose all that precious time, that could have been wonderful. Everyone has dreams of what they want, but those that make them come true, don't spend time dreaming, they spend time making the dream into a reality.