Episode 116: Selling or rehoming an older horse

Episode 116-Selling or rehoming an older horse.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 116-Selling or rehoming an older horse.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Announcer:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill, this is the Stacy Westfall podcast, Stacy's goal is simpl: to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Stacy Westfall:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall, and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. Today, I'm answering a question about selling or rehoming a horse. First, I'm going to talk a little bit about the general idea of selling, and then I'm going to specifically answer Rebecca's question. So let's go ahead and listen to her question.

Caller 1:
Hi, Stacy, it's Rebecca from Ohio. You've talked a lot in your podcasts about transitions with horses, meaning horses that you have bought or sold or had to say goodbye to. And I'm wondering, in the same way that you talked about the criteria you went through about buying a horse and the criteria about euthanizing a horse, what criteria do you go through when deciding when it's time to rehome a horse? I have a horse that I love very, very much. But as he's aging, he's maybe not going to be able to keep up with what I'd like to be doing for too much longer. So I want to know, how do I go about finding him the best next place where I can be sure that he's going to be well taken care of. I'd appreciate any of your insight on this topic. Thanks, Stacy.

Stacy Westfall:
Thank you for the question, Rebecca. Because the more I prepped for this, the bigger this topic got. Because what I realized, whenever that happens to me, I realize that I'm peeling back different layers. And there are so many nuances, so many little things to take into consideration on a subject like selling a horse. And I think a really good example of that is actually the podcast that you referenced where I discussed possibly buying a horse. And I think, what for me, recording it made that interesting was I was super specific about the process of what I was looking for when I was looking to buy. And that actually ties back to this episode perfectly because my first realization on the topic of selling was how important buying decisions are. And that could be a series of several podcasts, probably. But in general, it's definitely a little bit of that idea that, like when you're buying, there are a lot of future decisions being made right at that time. So first thought is on buying, and I know that's not specific to your situation, but I think it's a great thought when you are looking at horses, because that's where the buying and the selling do end up tying together. So, thoughts on selling in general. Well, another thought about selling in general would be–you know, it's interesting, I wrote a blog post on this topic back in 2011 and I just republished it yesterday so you could find it easily on the website. And I mention this because when I'm looking at the general idea, going to the comment section on something like that, where there are over 50 comments left, is really interesting. So the biggest issue I see around people in general selling horses is fear. So the number one reason people tend to struggle when they sell is because of some version of fear. So let's–I'm going to read you some of these phrases that I pulled out of the comments on that blog I just told you about. So listen to these comments:.

Stacy Westfall:
I don't think I could sell her knowing she could potentially hurt someone.

Stacy Westfall:
Different comment. My problem is I haven't been able to go to the barn much because I'm working a job so I can pay for her.

Stacy Westfall:
I don't feel safe riding her or on the ground around her, she's so sweet, though I would be heartbroken to sell her. I don't know what to do.

I don't want anything to happen to him.

It takes a huge toll on my stress level, and it makes me feel like she hates doing it.

Stacy Westfall:
I think it's interesting to read those and some are more clearly fear-based and some are a little more nuanced when you look at the way that the fear is showing up. But I think it's interesting to look at how the fear is showing up in those. Now, here's another layer that goes with the whole idea of selling. Let's look closer at two of the comments on the blog, specifically in their full version. Listen to this one:

Stacy Westfall:
After years of being with a horse that I just adored, I decided I had to find a more suitable home for him as our relationship was just so frustrating. He always pushed the boundaries and never respected me. One of the hardest decisions I ever made was to move him on to someone that was more suited to his strong personality, someone that would bring out the best in him. Gut-wrenching for me. You invest so much of yourself and time with your horses, but if the relationship is not clicking, then you have to do what's right for your horse and not just what you think is right for you. Your horse deserves that to.

And then set that idea of selling up against this idea a different comment:

Sorry, but my attitude is you keep a horse for its lifetime. Maybe the horse becomes unrideable for whatever reason. I'm not going to get rid of him. Too many horses end up at slaughter. Just my two cents.

Stacy Westfall:
So as I said before, as I started unpacking this for you, Rebecca, what I realized was that there were so many different layers to talk about in the general idea of selling that it just it can just kind of keep growing and growing and growing. So I'm going to sum up this general idea with a few more thoughts and then move into answering your specific question. So in general, some of the things to consider would be safety. And so a lot of times for me, when I'm looking at that from a professional view, I see a mismatch in the training level between the horse and the rider, and that typically shows up as one of them lacks experience. So that could be a like a really, really green horse. And so there's not enough experience for the level of the rider that that is. Or again, it could be a really green rider. And that's just really impacting the way that it shows up, even in that comment above, where you've just got a horse with a strong personality that asks a lot of strong questions. That can be enough, that it's that almost just a temperament difference that's going on there. But those can cause safety issues in the long run. Another thing to consider in general is the idea of enjoyment. And sometimes this, when I'm looking at it, shows up as an energy level mismatch. So that can be something like a high energy horse that somebody just wants to walk down the trail on, you know, three times a month. And that high, high energy horse is probably not going to enjoy that that much. And so it's a mismatch. You'll also get this in the–a lot of times in the older horse and the more advancing rider. So you'll see this sometimes when–a little bit like Rebecca's question is, or if you have an older horse and you loan it out to someone for their child to learn to ride on, it doesn't take very many years, lot of times, before that young rider goes from an eight year old that's timid to a 12 year old that wants to jump. And this older horse that was perfect for the timid beginner rider is no longer there. That's why I'm calling it like an enjoyment/energy level mismatch kind of there. And then there is the reality of like a financial mismatch, which becomes people can't afford to keep a horse, you know, or they can't afford to have multiple horses. So that might mean they can afford to have one horse. And now that horse is older and has arthritis and they want to do right by the horse, but they also want to ride horses. And the level of riding that they're capable of, the human is no longer aligned up with the level of the horse. So you can see how that becomes an enjoyment mismatch. But it can also become a financial mismatch because, you know…it's interesting, I've been in the industry for a long time. I I've owned horses for a long time. And, you know, our riding, a typical riding career for a person is many horse lifetimes long. So I have had horses, even if I've had them for their whole lives, like it's still–like the time period they're going to ride at the level I want to ride at only matches me for–there's a window of time in their life. And for me that's one of the reasons why rehabbing and finding these different places is important to me, because I know the level of riding I want to do. And if I kept all of them, I would need to have like a place for like 100 horses. So there's a–there you can kind of see where the tangle, the tangled web of like enjoyment and purpose and financial mismatch or financial match can all be woven together. That's why this topic deserves most likely more than one podcast.

Stacy Westfall:
But, Rebecca, let's dive in to your question a little bit more specifically. When I listen to it again, I realized there were two parts and I kind of got hung up on the second part and almost missed the first part. And when I listen to it again, I realized that right at the beginning you brought up the idea of when is the right time? And then further on, you were asking more about about how that happens. So I'm going to answer the when is the right time thing first. And it's interesting because first of all, you're thinking about the possible transition now. So you are in it. And I think that's personal for each person. And I encourage people to start thinking about it back when they're buying the horse. That's why I said at the beginning of this that I think it ties together so nicely. The–the the idea of buying and selling it, because that is a little bit, you know, I fall in that line somewhere between the idea of, do you keep one forever? Or when do you sell? And I–and I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle because I think there are good places the horses can go. But I'm always trying to figure out how once I'm involved in their life, what that's going to look like. Let me unpack that a little bit more clearly in the next few thoughts. So basically, if I breed one, then from the day I decided to breed them, I'm trying to see what role I'm going to play in their life. And then if I buy them, I'm doing the same thing. So for me, it's never too early to get looking at that. And that might come from the fact that I have lived through multiple horses' lifetimes. So I can see that beginning, middle, and end that maybe isn't quite as clear if you haven't done that. Now, for you in particular, Rebecca–notice I keep switching back and forth–the general and your specific. You'll know when the timing is right for you because a door is going to open or close. You're asking the questions now. So it's going to probably look like a one of two or three things. It's going to look like you find a great place for your horse and that will be like a door opening. Now, for other people, it can look like a door closing. Like the financial situation is determining it. But to me, you start asking the question and then you start finding out where you land on some of the answers that I'm about to discuss. And that shows you how and where those doors will open. You know, for some people, the idea that it's a mismatch, meaning like they want to show at a certain level and that horse isn't capable of that level, they can fairly easily sell that horse because that horse is competing. And there's somebody else at the show that wants to compete at the level the horse is good at. So for some people, this is an easy, open and closed door. And that's why sometimes it looks easy for people to make these decisions. When you get into the more nuanced things like you've got the older horse with arthritis, you've got the hotter younger horse that's, you know, going to take an expert to handle it. That gets a little bit more complicated. So either which way, though, it's just that sometimes those doors open and close easier when that horse is in that sweet spot in the middle, showing, athletic, just not the right fit for that rider. The turnover's faster because the doors open and close faster in some areas of life. And the fact that you're looking you're going to start seeing what's lining up in front of you. Now, the aging horse is obviously different. So you're going to start to see that he's not able to keep up. You're going to start questioning how much you're riding him. You're going to start doing that and you start looking around to see what situations would fit this horse. How does that look like? For me, that looks like you evaluate your own horse or maybe you get a professional. You just, you know, you ask somebody that is that knows your horse. That might be a little bit more outside of the situation because we can all be a little bit barn blind, which just means we have a special place in our heart for those horses. So maybe we don't see their weaknesses. So you evaluate your horse and you think, what does he have to offer right now as he is? So is he good with little kids? Is he good with people that are less experienced or does he require an expert? Is he kind of tricky? And so on a side note, one of my other goals when I'm influencing horses early on in their training is to give them a really solid base of training that leads to them being really useful in their old age. And what this looks like a lot of times is putting a lot of really boring hours into a horse early on. Because to me, I look at that base training as like, let's just pretend we're making soup. It's kind of cold where I am right now. I've been making a lot of soup. You've got your base materials that go in the soup and then I like a little bit of spice. And so the base materials go in. There's a lot more base materials than there are spices, at least in my soup. And so for me, training a horse–like right now I'm training Presto. Presto looks so boring right now and I could move him along so much faster. But what I'm doing is I'm teaching him how to be slow, steady and consistent on a day to day basis. It's crazy boring. It's technically holding me back. It's costing me something in the short term. But for his long term benefit, it's going to pay out. That's my belief. And if I spice him up and–bringing them back is always harder if you get too spicy in the beginning.

Stacy Westfall:
OK, back on track again. So what is your horse good at? What does he have to offer? Make yourself also answer the question more specifically. Go like this: What would the ideal situation for this particular horse be? What is the ideal situation for this horse? For some horses that are struggling with enough lameness issues, it might be just a pasture pet. That might be the ideal. And sometimes, you know, this sounds odd, but you might actually have a horse that's in that situation and you'll stumble across somebody who's like, could I use it for my little kid? And it's like, just answer the question, what would be the ideal situation for this horse right now and also realize it's going to keep changing. But just right now. Now, you've answered the question of what the horse has to offer, what the ideal situation for him would be, and now think about you. Now think, what do you fear the most about selling him? And for a lot of people, the big two would be resale for profit or slaughter. And so what do you fear the most about the idea of selling them? Answer that question. And then you're going to answer this question after this is going to be, how can I solve that problem? So how do you solve the problem of resale for profit or how do you solve the problem of slaughter bound? And I think that the slaughter bound one tends to trigger more people because it feels like they can't control it. Let me clean up the resale for profit idea real quick. So if you're afraid that the horse is going to be sold again for profit, then maybe you don't sell for as low a price. Now, what happens? And the reason I put these two together is because the resale for profit–like let's say that slaughter prices are five hundred dollars. And so that would mean that if you're worried that somebody's going to sell, maybe you sell for higher than that amount so that slaughter isn't a profit making margin. So that's one way that you can do it. And then the resale for profit, you know, from the from a different angle is just like, you know, if you think, I'm going to really cut these people a great deal and I'm going to, like, sell the horse to them for half price, you know, just be aware of, like, what the actual value is and what that is, because you run the risk of them turning around and being in a financial situation where they need the money for whatever reason. Maybe there's a horrible car accident and there's financial burden from some other thing, then that horse does become more at risk. So then you can get into different ideas like contracts and different things like that, like what can you do? So there's always all these interesting things. But I'm going to zoom back into the more general one that was, you know, brought up in the comment I read from the blog. But it's this fear of the horses ending up at slaughter, which I think when you have the older aging horse, is more of the fear that people tend to have. So how can you solve that problem? Well, the number one way that I've seen it solved is you keep the door open for them to come back to you. So this is, again, I might not have mentioned it in that buying episode, but again, this is why I'm real careful about buying, because I do keep the door open for horses to come back. And so let me say, there's a friend of mine that is–has been doing this. I just watched her bring her horse home again the other day. And so she's got an older horse that has some health issues metabolically, but he's real trained. He was a trainer, showed at a reasonably high level. And so he has a lot to offer young, inexperienced people. But again, that's a small window in a human life, typically. And so he goes out, he teaches some kids, he comes back to her, he goes out, he teaches some kids. He comes back to her. Now, in his situation, you know, with the health issues and the different connections–that, you know, I don't think there's a lot of–I didn't actually ask, so I don't know. I'm just going to say there's not money changing hands. But what you're doing is typically when you're vetting that home, it's just easier for that person to pick up the phone and be like, I'm done, and the horse goes back. And so, you know, there's at some point he will permanently, I'm guessing, retire to her place because that's what happens when you leave the door open. And this is actually, interestingly enough, a very similar situation to how I got my first pony when I was a child. And I bought her–technically, OK, my mom obviously arranged it–but my my brother and I bought her for a penny. No, two pennies. We overpaid because that's what you did. Her deal was, you know, they had this well trained pony that had heaves. So she had, did have like a respiratory issue. But you could buy her for a penny or two. And she came with a saddle and bridle and all this stuff. And when you were done with her because again, pony, children, small window. When you're done with her, you returned her and that was what they did. So technically, if you listen to that, it's a lease. But what happened was the pony, you know, had done that for quite a while. And then she came to our family and then she stayed from the time she was 16 until she was 32 and passed away. And so the the the concept is still there. So it's still this idea that there was an open door going back to that original family. And sometimes it's done with trust, without money, and sometimes it's secured by money. By the way, I don't think the penny was necessarily like an actual securing thing. It was a crazy good lesson for a kid, though. I remember the penny and, I've got a check, I think they still have the pennies. I think they saved the pennies. Just crazy fun lessons that you can also teach and learn. So that's actually how I got my first pony. Now, I've personally also done this twice for horses. Now, I did it with the financially secured avenue. So what that means is you heard me talk about Scrapper because he was the horse that I talked about in the euthanizing episode. Now, when I was…I bred him and he was the first horse that was ever born on my property that I ever had born ever. And I trained him and he went to college with me and I sold him when I graduated from college and we got married. We were broke and I sold him and I promised him I would buy him back. And so I then followed him and I could follow him through AQHA and I could follow him through–because he was around Ohio so I would run into him from time to time and I would keep track. And and I went to sales and sat there and watched him go up and get sold for more money than I had. And I just kept waiting. And so when the time came around, eventually lameness snuck up on him. And he, as he became more lame, I actually paid, when I bought him back, I actually paid the same amount for him that I sold him as when he was sound. So you can financially basically back this idea. So I did this also for actually Willow. So when I sold Willow she was a weanling and when I bought her back she was a four-year-old. She hadn't grown. So, you know, you can't totally predict that when they're little. And so the girls that bought her were young and the girls grew really tall and Willow did not. So there was a mismatch there. So I actually again bought her back for the same amount of money that I sold her for. So to me, what's happening there is I'm I'm prepared to buy them back, and how much do you pay for an old lame horse that you want to buy back? Well, kind of depends on how much the people that are selling them want for them. I chose that it was worth what I sold them for, you know? And so if you want to, you could go as far as opening a bank account for repurchasing the horse you sold. So you could say, I'm selling this horse for five thousand dollars. I'm telling you that if you want to sell him, I'm willing to buy him back. You could even be like me and you could watch him sell for, you know, more and more and more money because people knew more about selling horses. So I was kind of in that…for purchase, purchase for resale for profit is what Scrapper ended up going into, but then eventually his prices came down and then I repurchased him. And so there's all kinds of ways when you open up the door and you get kind of creative with it. So open that bank account, take the money from the horse, stick it straight into the bank account, wait for the horse. That's another option.

Stacy Westfall:
So back on track a little bit more. I've also seen older arthritic horses that went to like a therapeutic riding center and were used there. And then oftentimes, like I remember the one that I knew the most that went to a therapeutic riding center, when the arthritis and stuff eventually got to be to the point where the that horse couldn't be used anymore there was somebody from there that really, really wanted a pasture pet, you know, because they weren't looking for this horse that needed to go out and show and do all this stuff. And so the connections of the people that surround certain places are going to be different. So if you come around my barn, you're going to end up with a lot of people that are actively showing riding. So the circle around my barn tends to be very athletic horses that are in the prime of their life doing a lot. You go around a therapeutic riding center, the horses around that, and then the needs of the people that tend to surround that, even if it's the volunteers coming in, and–and the and the people that are managing it, they're they're much more well connected in those areas to find places. Like I'm not great at finding pasture homes because I find a lot of people that want athletic horses that are in the prime of their life. Interesting ways to think. And so the biggest thing, I'm going to wrap it up by closing with this thought. When you are thinking about selling a horse, leasing a horse, loaning a horse, I think one of the reasons I'm able to do this is because I believe there are good people in the world. I believe there are people out there who take excellent care of their horses. That is why when I talk about selling Willow, I talk about the idea that there will probably come a day for me where I've kind of maxed out what she wants to do with me. And I'll know because she'll start to be like, seriously? And I mean, beyond the normal amount of seriously. But there starts to be a day where maybe I want to step it up another level and another level and another level. And and if that day comes, then I actually believe when that day comes there could definitely be a person out there that would want to use her at 80% of what I've been asking. So she gets to move down in what's expected of her. And yet she gets somebody who is thrilled to be riding at that level. That happens to me all the time because that's what I do is I train horses and I train them up to a level. And a lot of times I can start to sense when we're getting up to that higher level of like we're just working in their upper range, it'd be like weightlifting or jumping higher, whatever you want to compare it to athletically for a person. At some point, there's a limit that that person has. And when you start to push against that limit day after day after day, it doesn't–it's not fun anymore. And that can also happen in this situation with the older horse. Now for me, my older horse Scrapper, he taught my kids to ride. He then went on and he taught the little girl that that got him. The last home he was at, I got to watch him. I got to watch my horse raise a little girl. And it was amazing, some of my favorite pictures, because you can just see the love between the two of them, and she wasn't asking him for–she wasn't asking for an eighth of what he could do, and they just loved each other. And at the end, when she was much bigger and he was much older watching her love on him, I'm telling you, it was priceless. She gave him things I couldn't give him. That doesn't make me a bad horse owner. It makes that situation better for him. And just keep in mind that that is a once in a lifetime experience that she got to have with my horse, because I was open minded to the fact that there could be a better home than even me. So if you have questions about selling, but they come from a totally different angle, go ahead and leave me a voicemail on my website. It'll be an orange button on the right hand side when you get there, and I would love to answer your question. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Announcer:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit stacywestfall.com For articles, videos, and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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