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Selling a horse is always a painful process regardless of the reasons why. Sometimes it’s because as a rider you out grow your horses abilities and it’s time to move onto one that can take you farther. Sometimes it’s due to safety and you and your horse just don’t mesh. Other times its due to finances and sometimes it’s time constraints and realizing you just can’t give a horse enough time.

In each instance it can be heartbreaking. Whether we have had the best of relationships with our horses or some of the worst we always get attached to them. Many times upon realizing that selling a horse may be the best option it tugs at our heartstrings and we sit in denial or fester on the decision for a long time.  We feel guilty for thinking of selling them and even more guilty keeping them around.

Not that long ago I made the decision to sell my young Connemara mare called Sparkle.  She is an awesome horse and one that could really take me anywhere I wanted to go IF  I had the time to put into her. With my job my work hours are crazier than I ever thought they would be. Some weeks I’m lucky to have time to hoover the house and get the kids off to school in washed and ironed clothes, gone are the days sadly where I can put as much time and dedication into giving a young horse the education it needs, taking it out regularly to different events, cross country schooling, clinics and the like.

I bought Sparkle from Ireland as a just broken 4 year old,  she had so much potential and I could see that with consistent training she could have a fantastic career.  Unlike my other laid back Connemaras I had owned in the past, Sparkle was sensitive, forward thinking and could at times be quite sharp, she was not the chilled out type.   In the wrong hands she could easily be one of those horses that was moved on from pillar to post but in the right hands she could be incredible.   After 2 years of hacking, schooling and the odd outing Sparkle had come on leaps and bounds. She could be shod without going up in the air, she didn’t cower at the back of the stable when you went in to see her and her trust in people had grown enormously but she needed to move on in her training and see more of the world but if anything my work was getting busier than when I first bought her. I had to pay someone else to ride her to keep her in consistent work and in the end it did not make financial sense to keep her.

In hindsight a horse that I could ride 3/4 times a week would have been the better decision than a youngster, a horse that didn’t go backwards if you did not ride them for 4 days if work or life got manic.  Sparkle was not this horse, she needed to be in constant work, a strict routine where she was given new things to learn and think about.   After much deliberation I decided to sell her.  Being 14.2h children/young teenagers came to try her. More buyers were interested but Sparkle was not the sort of mare who would take kindly to unbalanced jockeys bouncing and bumping about on her back, why would she, she had never been ridden that way!  I just could not let her go to someone who was not seriously competent, calm and experienced only for them to decide she was not for them and part exchange her at some awful dealer yard or heaven forbid put her in an auction.

Rosie Skier, who I had been paying to ride her for me when I couldn’t, agreed that any more viewings by the “wrong ” people could really unsettle the mare and undo months of training.  After much deliberation I offered my mare to Rosie.  I knew she liked her and could see potential in her but I was dubious whether she would buy her.  Luckily for Sparkle she did and it was the best decision I ever made.  Rosie knew Sparkle, all her talents and her foibles but loved her nevertheless. Rosie is a professional producer and since buying Sparkle from me 2 years ago has qualified for the RIHS both years and this year qualified for HOYS and even won an award for the most consistently high placed horse in her class throughout the season, qualifying for HOYS no less than 3 times.

This mare could have had such a different life.  If I had not spotted her in Ireland where would she have gone and what would have happened to her? If I had chosen not to sell her to Rosie but to someone less experienced where would she have ended up?  I sold her for very little money but I did right by her and she is with someone who has the ability, experience and time to do her justice and enable her to reach her full potential.  Although at the time I felt very guilty that I had failed her by not keeping her myself I can now look back and know the decisions I made have in actual fact given her the best life I could have wished for her,  a life I was not in a position to provide.

Deciding to part with a horse is never easy but many times it’s the right decision. If you’re someone who’s contemplating selling a horse, for what ever reason it may be, if you know deep down that it’s the right thing to do for both you and the horse then don’t let the guilt of saying goodbye keep your horse from having the home that is right for them.  Finding the right home is incredibly important and often very difficult if you are a choosy horse owner or if your horse is not the totally safe and sensible bombproof angel aged between 6-10 everyone seems to be looking for.   Here at Right Horse Right Home we offer a different service, a service that has been meticulously thought out to help horse owners in particular find the right homes for their horses in a way that is more efficient than conventional methods and a great deal less stressful.  We will also lend a supportive ear if you simply want to give us a call about your individual situation.  To find out more about how our website are service offer a safer way to find the right home do read this article here.