Some Fun Looking at Horses for Sale . . .

Do you ever, for fun, look at sale ads for horses on line?  I like to do this sometimes, and although it's fun, it's also a little sad, since I can't have the horses I find, or even go see them - I already have three fine horses to ride and more would (probably) be too much.

But occasionally I do some searching on the horse sale sites . . .   Those of you who were around for the Great Horse Search in 2010 - that resulted in my getting both Pie and Red - will remember that I had fairly specific search criteria in terms of conformation.  I also have fairly strong opinions about QH pedigrees, and what I do and don't like to see in them.  I wanted a QH (there are plenty of other nice horses, but QHs are most familiar and comfortable to me) - registered only so I'd know the bloodlines - either mare or gelding, color/markings not important, between 4 and 12 years old, between 14.3 and 15.3 hands, and for sale for under $5,000.  I'm generally not interested in horses bred to win in halter, and horses bred/trained for Western pleasure are of little interest to me - I don't fancy the build or bloodlines there for the most part.  I'm not in the market for a competitive cutting, reining or barrel horse, but those bloodlines are fine. Horses bred for all-round ranch work appeal to me. Some of these opinions, maybe most of them, are just biases, but I'm fine with that - it made the search easier.  I'm looking for an intelligent, willing and athletic horse, with excellent soundness and conformation, starting from the feet up (bad feet are an automatic disqualification) - every horse has good points and bad points but I'd like a good overall package.  The horse had to be started under saddle, and the more experienced the horse, the better. And, even when I found horses to consider, I did a fairly extensive e-mail and phone follow up to get a lot more information and photos.  I  was always looking to find a reason - particularly related to conformation or soundness - to say no.

So, just for fun, and assuming that I was in the market for another horse, here are three candidates for your consideration - let's have some fun.  In the days of my horse search, all three of these might have been candidates for some follow up.

Horse number 1

Horse number 2

Horse number 3

Tell me what you think, and I'll tell you what my questions might be about each horse - and see if you notice what I did about horse number 3's name . . .