The Wandering Equestrian : November 2013

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Daily dose of gross

Taken from Tacky Tack of the Day facebook page- you should join to see all the disgusting tackiness in all its.... uh, glory.

My ass hurts just looking at this thing. OUCH!

Looks slippery

I see these, especially in pink, at nearly every auction.

'murica

For the couch potatoes!

I feel like this would be bad to own in hunting season...

Elvis saddle!

Well, it looks like a squishier one than the other couch saddle

*dazzle dazzle* Edward Cullen Saddle? (yeah, I just made that reference, yeah I'm slightly ashamed)

Saddles now endorsed by pepto bismol

For those who really wanted to ride a cow instead

Why was one not enough?!!

....modern art saddle?

eww. Just eww.

So there's your daily dose of tacky. And sparkles. And possibly vomit.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Well Loki found his new partner today- a really nice guy with horse sense and compassion.... and he's getting lessons from some highly rated mounting shooting people. Loki's going to go be a cowboy shooting and park ranger horse. I really liked this guy (obviously since I sold him a horse) and I think it's a absolutely great match.

So we were talking, petting the horses (we both agree we wish we could go back to our childhoods and apologize to our horses) and I was telling him about the auction politics and scams that go on behind the scenes. I thought it might make a semi interesting blog post.

But guess what?! Even if it isn't, you're getting it anyway.

So, I'm watching 'storage wars' and I'm watching the bidding- okay more like the catty bitch fights and name calling. I'm seeing a lot of people bidding other people up just to be jerks and lots of posturing. Hellooooo reality TV!

This is not the same game as horse auctions, at least in my experience. So I'm going to describe some of the shittier aspects of horse sales and the people that frequent them. We're going to skip over the obvious drugging and lying about the horse, exploiting children to make your horse look better, etc. Keep in mind this is my personal experience, it probably doesn't hold true everywhere and certainly not at the high quality auctions.

Kill buyers and brokers as auctioneers: yep. Guess who's horses get the longest time in the ring? Brokers- Guess who the bid spotters in the ring help 'up' the price for? Still them. These people also buy horses cheap, then take them to the next sale and sell them themselves- making a tidy profit at the same time.

Don't know the auctioneer? Good luck getting a decent price because they'll try to rush you out of the ring as quickly as possible- oh and they don't like to talk about the horse either so you'll have to yell. Yes, the auctioneer makes a commission, but many get paid a flat rate fee- so it's all the same to them what it sells for.

Kill buyers as bid spotters in the ring and kill buyers hanging out in the ring so they can yell what they want to pay. It's amazing how often the kill buyers "don't see" your bid when its going against their own... This is why you have to yell.... loudly.

Kill buyers as auctioneers (again) who will start the horse super high ($1400) and when there's no bids their partner will call out the meat price or below it and no one bids against them. They do this so the thought in everyone's mind is: "Well those horse isn't worth that much.. there's no way I'm paying that..." Basically it takes people out of the game before it starts

Traders who sit next to you and will lie about the horse so they can get it cheaper or who'll lie for their friends if they think you're a newbe and wont be back. Thankfully this doesn't happen as much once they know your face. There are also the good traders who will tell you the truth about the horse so that you don't get burned. A good way to build this communication is a commentary on certain horses, for example: Auctioneer: "10 years old!" Me: "Sure, 13 years ago..." Or just discussing horses that go through. Be nice to the people around you, you'll probably find out a lot more than you would otherwise. Especially if they've seen the horse being ridden before. The guy sitting next to me at the London sale was the one who told me that Moose would rear, when I was bidding. Not an issue for me personally (especially since he's not actually a rearer but a bluffer), but very nice of him to mention.

Anyway, then you have the workers who will hit, spook or poke horses coming up with cattle prods. This is to get them worked up and anxious so that they or their friends and partners can get the horse cheap.

There are many more, but I've forgotten them now- of course. I'll add them when I remember them.

As a note for a follow up to my last post: To 'horse proof' sharp edges that refuse to go flat you can use the spray foam used to close gaps. This stuff:

It's not pretty looking, but when it dries it works pretty well as a blocker. It has some give so when they run into it it doesn't cut them. The best part is that these cans cost under $3. I'll vouch that this actually does work.... unlike the waterproofing of blankets stain. That was a dud.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Cheap horse people slowly become Macgyver.

Yep. We've all done some quick ingenious fixing up (unless you're really really rich, in which case- hey, you're my new best friend!) you know, fixed a blanket with bailing twine, substituted this or that for grooming supplies, used household products for horse things. For example, we've been using a two step plastic step stool as a mounting block.

Basically this.

It actually worked pretty well, and for several years. Unfortunately it's my gelding Sam's favorite toy. He is very fond of flipping it over with his nose and then turning around and backing up into it until he is standing in the gaps. We don't know why he does this (I freaked out the first few times he did this thinking he'd panic, now I just yell at him to quit breaking things) we think he may be trying to hitch himself up to a 'buggy' because he'll look back and then realign himself. Because of this irksome habit he's basically destroyed it. So We've been looking at mounting blocks- real ones.

Well real ones, especially 3 step ones, are damn expensive. My family has never been into buying something new if we can find it used or make it ourselves. ( My father is a professor, my mother is stay at home and they had 5 kids. Two biological and three adopted from India- two around age 10. At one point they were raising all us on about 12-13 grand a year. And we had dogs, cats, chickens and yes, horses. Because of this we had to get pretty creative with what we could get our hands on and what we could make ourselves. Now that we're making considerably more than that we don't have to pinch as much, but man are those habits hard to let go of.)

Anyway, I actually found a real mounting block at a garage sale- but it wasn't for sale. :( So I've been looking into building one out of wood.

The problem being..... well, I'm not all that good with building shit. My father is, but I'm.... less so.

Anyway, I'm avoiding putting away my laundry so I'm going to share my favorite cheap horseman and future goals. You can thank pinterest for making me all crafty and giving me ideas. They all look so easy but pinterest can lie like that.

One of my own:

Make poles for practicing pole bending or improving flexibility and turns:

Need: Quick mix cerement- 1 bag

Several old one gallon size ice cream tubs

Around 4 pvc piping- as thick as you want- these are usually pretty long so you can cut them in half

Step: Cut the piping

Step 1: Mix the cement and pour it into the ice cream tubs.

Step 3: Add pipes to middle of the tub.

Step 4: pour some cement down the middle of the pipe

Step 5: let it dry. The longer the better.

Step 6: Let it sit a few days then remove it from the ice cream tubs.

Bam, cheap poles from fun or practice. They'll still move and fall, and it costs about 8 bucks for all of it.

Now onto others I want to try:

Waterproofing old blankets with wood protector. We've got some old crappy blankets that we don't use anyway, and I'm going to try this on one of them. If it works, I'll do it to others. I'm skeptical though.

The downside is that they won't be breathable. However I only blanket when I really have to: sudden temp. drop or freezing rain, etc. So basically I'd like to have an extra waterproof blanket on hand if I have too many horses and not enough good blankets.

We have 3 nice, new waterproof heavy blankets. One was a gift and we bought the other two on sale for like $40 each or something ridiculous since it was out of season. We should have got 3 of them, ah hindsight!

We have 3-4 non waterproof heavy blankets, most old and dusty, one light non waterproof one, and two waterproof (I think) thin blankets/sheets.

So I figure, if I wreck one of the ones we never use, I'm not really out much (A gallon of the walmart brand stuff cost me $10.) and it if actually works, hot damn!

(Update: I tried it. While it may help a little- especially with light rain, I would not call it waterproof. Don't get me wrong, it's more so than it was before, but not worth it overall.)

The links to these are all wacky and messed up, so if you see something you want to try... ... ... use google.

Build a mounting block:

We also want to make slow feeders:

Easy fill bags- this is for sale but I don't know why you couldn't just make it yourself with twine.

lol! This one just makes me laugh

Keep feed off the ground

This is the kind we're trying to make, getting a hold of the barrels is annoying though, unless you want to pay full price.

Tehe, my horses would destroy this in minutes, but it's a neat use of a plastic tub.

This is an idea... if you have horses that get along and won't monopolize the hay.

Make your own hay bags from bailing twine (So making these! I hate when I send a horse home with someone and they have no hay place and a decently long drive)