Patience is a virtue

So what's next? The few people in my real life who cared knew that I owned a horse have asked me if and when I'm getting another. I haven't had a really good answer for anyone, or myself really, beyond "yes, at some point". It's just not a simple question to answer. There are a lot of moving pieces to that question. Here is a little bullet list summing them all up:

• Hubs would be completely happy if he never saw another horse again (tough luck buddy). However, Hubs recognizes that his life is happier when I'm in a happy horse mood, so he recognizes the need for them in my our life. I have a personal theory that if I can get him his own horse that is small and not a crazy warmblood baby old ranch horse that he trusted and could take hunting he would enjoy and appreciate horses a bit more. If not, well then at least JR would have a horse if he wanted to ride.
• Getting a riding age horse right now would be pointless. I don't have time to ride regularly, so I would be only creating the same problem that I sold Rose to fix. This will not change for at least another year and a half, until JR starts part time pre-school.
• Getting a baby/youngster right now would be fine as they require much less time. 15 minute ground work and handling 3+ days a week is a lot less demanding than 3 hours at the barn 4+ days a week. However, I would still have to board said baby/youngster. Pasture board with no indoor arena is doable during this age/stage but it still isn't all that cheep, and although my last barn was a great place I stress a lot about the care of my horses and I am tired of putting up with things I don't agree with in terms of horse care. So searching for a different boarding situation, while it may be less expensive, is not at all appealing. I don't really care to board anywhere but at my last barn. This brings me to bullet #4.
• Buy land. This is the current direction we are going and the main reason I've agreed to be horseless for a while. Once we trade in our lovely, yet pointless, 5 bedroom home on a golf course for 5+ acres we will have plenty of room for an outdoor arena, a baby/youngster, and a steady Eddie project/babysitter/husband/kid horse. This will also make doing regular ground work and riding easier now that JR is in the picture. Honestly if we lived on land to begin with I never would have sold Rose. Maybe bred her until I had time to ride again, but I wouldn't have had to justify the cost of upkeep on a show horse that I wasn't riding.

The last bullet point is the current plan. Once that happens then the baby/youngster shopping will begin. The hard part is waiting. I know it takes time to sell and buy property. It's not a fun process by any means, and moving is never fun...well with the possible exception of moving one's horses to one's own property. That I imagine would be good fun.

What makes it really hard though is that I'm regularly coming across in-utero foal options that I would love to jump on as well as OTTB project options that would be a lot of fun. Those are the two options I am considering for my next project(s). I really know nothing about breeding other than genetics/pedigree/and registration, so I'm not inclined to jump into the unknown world of breeding my own horse. Hense the in-utero consideration.

I would love to have another Gatsby baby for my forever horse. His babies have such good minds and wonderful talent and are such good all purpose show horses. While the baby is growing up I think it would be fun to flip a couple OTTB's. As for the husband/kid/babysitter horse there are so many dead broke ranch/hunting horses around here that I think the right one will be easy to come by....as a few have already. Now I just need land to put the ponies on. They say that patience is a virtue...one I'm working on.

Happy trails and swooshing tails!
•Renee•