Buyer Beware

There is nothing unique about this experience. It happens frequently in the horse industry, but the point is it shouldn’t. A man buys a horse, the horse turns out to have problems man knew nothing about prior to purchase. Although a recent situation with a horse one of my Interns is working on inspired this post, it has been a recurring theme for my entire horse career, starting with my own purchase of my very first horse.  In the coming months we will be following Cimarron’s training with posts from both myself and my intern, Nicole Sulick.  We hope to educate and help keep others from making the all-too-common mistake of getting in over their head by purchasing a horse that turns out not to be what they bargained for. I would both encourage and caution you that if you are interested in purchasing a horse to pay a trained professional to assist you and to be careful that, if that professional is your trainer, they have your best interest at heart.

As part of 3TF’s Massage Intern program, Interns are required to work on horses under my supervision. Nicole had been working with Cimarron, a lovely brown Quarter Horse, since the end of January for massage, along with some training, as he was having some behavioral issues that affected Nicole’s ability to massage him. Nicole submitted notes for my review, and presented her experiences to the Intern class. I gave Nicole suggestions and recommendations, but she felt like she was continuing to struggle since the horse just didn’t seem to be making the progress other horses that she worked on did. She discussed her concerns with me, and at this point I felt it was time to see for myself what was going on. Nicole and I decided the best thing was for me to meet the horse and provide a professional massage for him, with Nicole available to observe and ask questions.

When we got to where Cimarron was boarded, he was standing tied to a horse trailer. I prefer to use a round pen or arena for a massage so that I can watch the horse move freely, which has the added benefit of warming up the muscles as well.  I also find horses tend to be more receptive to massage when not tied up. I find this method safer for me, too, as the horse does better when he sees he has room to move if he needs it and does feel trapped. I knew this facility did not have either. I could also tell just by looking at the horse when we pulled up that he wasn’t going to be comfortable, no matter what I did. Because of this, I decided to jump in and start working with the horse while he was tied.

The first thing that struck me was how tight Cimarron’s muscles were over his entire body. He held himself in such a state of anxiety that all his muscles appeared to be firing at once as though his entire nervous system were on fire and ready for flight or fight. I was told that he was going off to a trainer’s in a couple of days to try and “fix” his training issues. Over the years I have learned to listen to my intuition and when listening to the plan I got this sick feeling in my stomach that I get when I shouldn’t do something. I didn’t know the trainer, but from what I knew of the horse I thought it would take a fairly special person to be able to integrate the body issues of this horse with his training problems. I also felt Nicole would be a more suitable choice than an unknown trainer, since I knew Nicole would ask for help and not allow ego to stand in the way of helping a horse. The owner said he would feel much more comfortable with this choice as well.  Nicole made the arrangements for the horse to come to where she boards her horse, which does have a round pen. The next step (and blog post in this series) would be getting him there.