The horse world isn’t easy.

Being in the horse business is HARD. Is it one of the best jobs in the world in my opinion YES but that doesn’t take away from how unbelievably challenging it is. They say if you do what you love you never work a day in your life.. well I’m sorry but “they” are flat wrong. I’ve talked with my friend a lot lately about selling horses and what it does to you (she also sells horses). The amount of stress and anxiety it brings. In a perfect world as long as you’re honest with your sales everything should be peachy right? WRONG. We go out and spend our hard earned (and probably tight) money to find what we think will be a good horse for someone. We bring it home and have to learn all of its quirks in a matter of no time. We have to feed it, get it proper vet care, farrier care and hope that nothing happens to it in the pasture. Even though you’re doing all this care there will still be someone that says well why didn’t you get x rays… the horse cost $3000 with a $1000 profit margin and the x rays cost $500 do the math Karen (Hypothetical numbers). When we feel the horses are ready we have to spend hours getting videos and pictures that accurately showcase the horse and most likely getting in a fight with whoever is helping us because let’s be honest, it’s inevitable. Then we have to go about the rest of our day including of a lot of other riding and not to mention normal life things like grocery shopping which of course you have to drive far to do because you needed the house in the country to keep selling horses. Later, after the chores are done, dinner is made and most 9-5 ers are putting their feet up now it’s time to put the video and ad together. When you’re so tired you’ve spent the last 5 minutes staring at one word trying to decide if it’s spelled right or not. Finally, when that’s done you can wait an hour or more for YouTube to post the video because that’s the only way to somewhat save the quality of the video that just took you all day and night to make. Once the ad is posted you’ve read it about 100 times at this point and feel really good about it only to have those good feelings shattered by the first person asking something blatantly written in the ad but, you can’t sass them because they are potential customers and customers pay your bills. After weeding through what feels like millions of tire kickers finally someone wants to buy your horse. They ask if you have PayPal and you explain you do but please pay as friends and family. Of course that doesn’t happen and there goes a fee. When that’s all sorted out you then have to line shipping up while praying nothing happens to the horse in the meantime. Once the horse is headed to its new home you can take maybe half a second of breathe time because the honey moon phase is real. After about a week panic starts to set in again. The horse was ”perfect” here but, was that just because we have a calm welcoming environment? Do they know what they are doing or did they just tell me they know what they are doing? Did they put it right on sweet feed and expect it to remain chill? Are they wound tighter than a top and now giving the horse anxiety? Did they put the biggest shank bit they could find at their local feed store and expect it to ride like the video? Every new phone call makes you feel like they are calling to complain. Calling to tell you that they are not happy. The easy answer is to do your best and not care what people think but, when you own a business it’s not that easy. Happy customers come back and refer their friends. Happy customers keep food on your table and more importantly in your pasture. even writing this all out brings instant stress and anxiety and this is a winning situation. There’s so many times we bring horses home and they aren’t what we were promised and then it’s on us to try to find them somewhere to go while maintaining integrity and not losing all of the money invested. Selling horses is not for the faint of heart. Next time you buy, please remember while this may just be a hobby to you, this is their life. When you’re messaging at 11pm about a horse you’re not going to buy just DONT!

The end. 🫶🏻