The barn where I board my mare has a wonderful mix of different types of horses and riders. Horse owners have varying interests in eventing, dressage, natural horsemanship, western pleasure and hunter/jumper, and their horses include Quarter Horses, Thoroughbreds, Dutch Warmbloods, Irish Sporthorses, and draft/Thoroughbred crosses, among others. The range of horse and rider expertise is varied too with some riders having 30+ years of expertise as they start their young 4-year-olds and some new owners with their first horses.

Having been at barns that had more specific interests—like hunter/jumper and dressage—and more experienced riders who were competing in those areas, I find it refreshing to be working in less of a vacuum now. Advice and help is given freely, and there’s never a stupid question. Many of these horse-horse owner combinations are surprisingly mismatched with overfaced owners who really need help. And they’re coming from facilities that sold them the wrong horses (yes, I know, it’s the owner’s choice in the end whether to purchase or not, but I find fault in sellers who don’t consider the appropriateness of the match.)

Many of these new owners have been fleeing facilities and individuals that expect to be compensated each time they give the owner advice or assistance. The sad fact is that they aren’t buying these horses from sale barns. Their own instructors were recommending, if not pushing, these horses on them. One can only assume that the facilities are intentionally selling mismatched horses to new owners to keep those owners reliant on them and to keep them paying for service after service. Why else would you sell a hot-headed, cantankerous, off-the-track Thoroughbred show jumper to a nearly 60-year-old woman who wants to learn horsemanship and go trail riding? Or a quarter horse who was broke for a year (and bucks) to a woman with just months of riding experience? The facilities have their own interests at heart: selling a sale horse; getting board money from the person buying the horse; and getting additional money for “helping” the owner by schooling the horse and other services.

These new owners are now in our facility—one already sold his horse to someone more experienced. The others are having their horses schooled—for free—and are getting hands-on training and lessons from people with years of experience (and who won’t take a dime for their time). Having the opportunity to board at a place like this, I am well aware of how lucky I am.

I laughed years ago when I saw a horse named “Caveat Emptor,” which is Latin for “buyer beware.” Now I wonder if it was a joke or was this horse owner one of those poor people who trusted a horse dealer far too many times.