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I want to know what people think on this issue: I have three good friends at my barn who have recently come to terms with what they are going to do with their horses. I'm going to give you their situations and tell me what you think you would do in their shoes if you had to choose between a horse you loved or the equestrian career you wanted. I'm going to try and describe as non-biasly as possible.
(names have been changed for my personal enjoyment)

Subject A: April (15 year old girl. First horse from a pony, green rider, very green to jumping) and Autumn (5 year old Anglo-Arab, very hot and timid).

Subject B: Deanna (28, moving up to 4' jumpers.) and Scout (9 year old Hanoverian, athletic, cute).

Subject C: Hunter (25, in her first year of horse ownership) and Eve (9 year old TB)

Subject A: April has had Autumn for about a year now and knows she is a green horse. She LOVES her to bits and pieces as much as a 15 year old can love a horse. Autumn is nothing but pleasant on the ground but very green under saddle and has bad habits like bolting, spooking, being skid-dish, stopping at fences and rearing. April is willing to work through Autumn's issues but April is also a green rider. She mostly seeks a quick fix and gives up easily, a timid rider who isn't sure how to correct Autumn's behavior. Before April owned her, Autumn had been exposed to a lot of jumping and hard work as a 3 year old. April would be ok with getting a new horse if it was the right horse and Autumn went to a good home.

Knowing this, what do you think she should do? (these are all opinions of people in our barn who have commented on the situation)

1. Work with the horse she obviously loves and wants to work with and they will get through it together with some bumps and bruises.
2. Sell the mare. She is obviously too green and could be dangerous for anyone but a professional.
3. Autumn just needs professional training, send her to a trainer for a few months and then see how she goes.
4. They are a poor match, April needs a bombproof horse to truck her around and boost her confidence and get her somewhere. Autumn needs a good balance of tough love and slow progressing training. They need to part ways.
5. Other (explain)



Subject B: Deanna has a good job, her own barn and has shown since she was young. this gelding is her 9th horse and they have shown up too 3'6'' jumpers all over and Deanna feels that Scout can no longer carry her further and that he just doesn't like his job and will never do a 4' course with any integrity. Scout is a bit lazy and likes dressage more or pleasure. Deanna bred and raised this gelding. She wants to show 4' and continue with her equestrian career. Deanna is a very skilled rider who will be an excellent professional someday soon.

Knowing this, what do you think she should do? (these are all opinions of people in our barn who have commented on the situation)

1. Sell Scout so Deanna can advance with a horse who can do the 4' course and be a better match for her level.
2. Buy another one but keep Scout, you can't let go of a precious horse like that.
3. Keep Scout. He did 3'6'' so he could go higher, he's got it in him he just needs more training to bring out his potential.
4. Other (explain)



Subject C: Hunter has owned Eve for about a year. Hunter has never owned a horse before Eve but has leased many before and is an amateur rider. Eve has turned out not to be the dream horse she always wanted, but Hunter accepted that fact and is about to give up on a a career for Eve and herself. Eve isn't cut out to be a riding horse and Hunter is upset, but is very much against selling Eve. Hunter had a bad accident with Eve and is unsure about riding and a little tensed up when on her horse or other horses.


Knowing this, what do you think she should do? (these are all opinions of people in our barn who have commented on the situation)

1. Hunter should sell Eve and get a horse who is more athletic and can do what Hunter wants to do and build her confidence
2. Hunter should keep Eve and stick with her buddy, do what Eve CAN do.
3. Hunter should invest in another horse as well as Eve and keep Eve for a buddy for the other horse.
4. Other (explain)

My Questions:
1. So what do you think these three girls should do? What would you do?
2. What's your take on the relationships between horses and people?
3. Can you advance to a higher level without the bond?
4. Can the bond between a horse and person be so strong that you want to give up all the dreams of being a champion?
5. Are there some horse - rider matches that just aren't made to be? Could one rider take a horse to the top and another rider fail and go backwards?
6. Your experiences with bonds and having to make or break them?

Interesting, very interesting.

I can agree with you about April, and it turns out now that this is what she's done, sent her horse away for training.

In the case of Deanna, she's not rich and can't afford to have two horses. She does put a lot of money into them but owning two is a big job, esp with a full time job and a kid. I don't want to give away what I think too much because more people might want to comment but Deanna's situation raises the big question about love vs career. She finds it hard to think about giving him up, but she wont be able to advance with him. It's the difference between Deanna and Hunter in that Deanna needs the horse who can do the job and Hunter wants to do whatever her horse can with her and no more.

Hunter's situation is delicate. She does need a confidence booster but this mare isn't unsafe, she's just not physically capable of some harder tasks.

And in the case of Hunter, if her horse is lame and really isnt suitable to be used for anything but light riding now, what would you do?... Selling only raises the issue of where is she going to end up? Because we all want the perfect home for our horses when they leave us and for them to continue to be treated as you would treat them, but a lot of the time it never happens that way. Would you sell a horse that was lame for 50% of it's life and take the risk or find a way to retire the horse and get a second way (Though Hunter is a student so I can't see it happening)

alright, I've been meaning to respond to this for a while now and finally have the time and energy to sit down and do so.

Subject A:
Although irrelevant seeing as you said April already sent her horse off to a trainer, that would be the best answer. At the moment, April and Autumn are not a good match. I am not generally a big fan of the green horse/green rider combo, but if you have a determined enough kid, it can work. It sounds like Autumn could be a great horse for April, and they could learn a lot together if they had a great trainer to work with them all the way through. This would not be just a "send her to the trainer for 3 months" type of fix. She needs a trainer that will regularly work with her to keep her training up, and help her to work through issues that do arise. Ideally, she should probably have someone who could both give her at least one riding lesson on her a week, and also ride her themselves and school her at least once a week.

Subject B
Deanna is in the tough spot that a lot of people find themselves in when they decide that they want to pursue horses professionally. You have to be able to view your riding as a business and horses as your employees. It doesn't mean that you treat them callously, or that you don't care about them, a good boss should care about the people who work under them, but when the situation is no longer mutually beneficial to both parties, it is time to part ways. It sounds like Scout should be able to find a good home as a dressage horse (I'll take him!). The fact is that some horses just aren't as talented as others, and if you want to advance in your career, you need to be able to recognize that. There's nothing wrong with having "building block" horses along the way. My next horse will probably be something young that I can train to second or third level and then sell, because I'm not in a position right now to afford something with the talent to go higher. But if I can train a horse to be really solid at the lower levels, then they can go on and teach other people. Will it make it easy to sell them? Not at all. Selling or leaving horses is the most painful experience for me. I've still got a picture of the horse I had to leave behind when I moved on my desk, and the nameplate of the horse that wasn't sound enough to perform on my windowsill.

In short, Deanna needs to decide what her priorities are. If she really wants to be a professional and compete at a higher level, then she needs to let Scout move on and get herself a more talented horse that can take her where she wants to go. If she would be happy with a career as a lower level trainer and instructor, then she could keep Scout and chug along with what they've been doing, but it doesn't sound like that's what she wants. I have a feeling that she'll regret it in the end, 20 years from now when she's thinking of the things that she could have done when she was younger.

Subject C
It doesn't sound like Eve is cut out for an equestrian career as of right now. A bad accident is awful, and I don't want to diminish what that can do to your confidence and your pscyhe. But if you can't get over that and keep on going, you're not cut out to be a professional in this field. It sounds heartless, but it's the truth. You need to be able to take a deep breath, put your butterflies aside, and get on and do your job. It's scary and it's hard and sometimes you feel like you're most definitely going to die. But you do it anyway. That's just how it works. If Hunter is dead set against selling Eve, maybe she should take some time off from competitive riding and focus on figuring out what it is that she wants out of horses and out of life. It might be a good idea for Hunter to see if she can find another horse to take some lessons on in order to build up some confidence. If Eve has soundness issues, it does make the situation tricky. You can't just sell an unsound horse down the river and trust that they'll be happy and healthy the rest of their days. If Hunter can afford more than one horse, keeping Eve around as a "buddy" might be the best option, but I really think that Hunter needs to get some lessons on a good school horse first to overcome the issues that were created after her accident and take some time to reevaluate her goals. If she is seriously considering giving up a career because the horse she currently owns can't hack it, it doesn't sound like she's serious enough to be a professional anyway.

Final Comments
I just felt like I needed another subject heading xd

A career in the equestrian field is not as glamorous and exciting as people romanticize it to be. It is long hours of hard work, harder decisions, and a lot of pain. You have to deal with people that you won't like and who are unrealistic in their expectations of their horse/child/own riding ability. You have to work with horses sometimes that you do not click with (unless you're, you know, an olympian, then you can pick and choose. Us mere mortals don't have that luxury). You will get hurt. At some point, it will probably be bad. You will have accidents. You will have training set backs. s**t happens. There are really only a few words that can describe the experience of finally being ready for a big competition at a level you've been striving toward for years and years, only to have your horse bow a tendon the week before, and I'm not allowed to use them on this forum. It hasn't happened to me, but I know people that it has, and I've had similar experiences (just on a lesser scale, though it was a qualifying show for nationals, and bone chip, not a tendon). I spent some time with my old trainer at the beginning of October. I had just recovered from a serious injury and was finally able to walk enough to get back out to the barn. It was her day off and I was helping her move irrigation pipes and fix fences at her barn. At that point, she hadn't had a weekend since June, and wasn't going to have one until November. She did finally get a weekend off a little bit ago, because I got a drunken facebook message from her and her friend Hania (a USDF certified fourth level instructor).
Horses will come and go. You'll outgrow horses and have to sell them, or they'll get taken away from you. I'm trying really hard to get my feet underneath me right now so that I can purchase my own horse again. I have had a lot of horses taken away from me for one reason or another over the past 8 years, and I'm ready to have someone who will be able to stay for a while, but I know that the time will eventually come that I'll probably have to let that horse go as well. Maybe I'll be lucky and be able to sell steady schoolmaster to one of my clients. I know people who have done that and it works out pretty well. But you don't always have that option.

There is nothing wrong with having horses as a hobby. Even a very serious hobby. You can be a fantastic rider and do a lot at competitions, but if you don't have the heart and the drive do what it takes (within ethical considerations) to make it in this world, you're better off not doing the professional thing.

I myself have been questioning my level of drive to make it in this world lately. I had a bad experience a little while back that has made me question if I really want to be part of this world, and if I'm really willing to do what it takes to get ahead, get my name out there, and succeed in this business. I think that I can, but I'm questioning it more than I once did. Partially because I really don't want to have to move across the country again. I'm kind of done with that. We'll see what happens though.