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Kristin's Blog post # 4: Horse shopping in Germany and Ireland!
Fantasy Fiction - or rather, horse shopping.
I always dreamed of shopping internationally for horses. Of someone giving me a blank check and saying, “Go find the horse of your dreams!” I envisioned barns that were equine palaces, trots that spent more time in the air than on the ground, champagne like at the Dubarry tents, robust stallions being paraded before that year’s offspring, etc. I literally could go on about my vision of this experience for hours, because I think after my weekly “If I won the lottery I would….” visions I just built this dream piece by piece.
So the good news – I got to go shopping in Europe with a very flexible budget for horses for the new Morningside Horse Program (http://morningsidetrainingfarm.com/training-programs/#horse_program) and also for Connor and Skye’s next big time horses. So we had plane tickets to Germany and Ireland, and the world in front of us! If we liked it, we could buy it, and so while there was a MINOR deviance from my fantasy (the horses weren’t for me…after all), the rest was pretty much in place.
We first went to Luhmuhlen, Germany, where the Top Event Horse auction was being held. As you may/ may not be aware, I am the business manager at Morningside Training Farm. The Husains got the farm in March, and I have been there since building the business and helping run events, etc. Skyeler Icke Voss is the head trainer (she was my trainer before all this began), and Connor is one of her students. Connor just won Young Riders this year and then Fair Hill on his horse Bruno. Skye and Connor bought Bruno last year in Germany from Cristoffer Forsberg. He produced the horse, with his mother, from nothing to winning a three star. Bruno is one of the most brilliant horses ever, and so well trained, so back to Germany we went. Cristoffer is the main rider for Elmar, who runs the Top Event Horse auction.
The auction could not have been more professional or brilliantly run, and the horses were truly exceptional. However, we had a few guidelines we really wanted to stick to. We wanted at minimum 50% TB, but preferably over 65%. We wanted an exceptional vetting, because we had to be able to resale on the East coast of the US, where the ground is concrete a few months out of the year. Europe was wet, and that is usually how it is. Consequently, horses can have things we consider issues that cause no problem there. Trance would probably be sound as the day is long were he competing in Europe…..but he is not. While we loved a couple of the horses at the auction, one did not have enough TB, and the other was iffy for resale here. So, no bidding.
We did, however, locate what HAS to be the world’s largest tack shop. Literally HUNDREDS of pairs of breeches in every design/color/fabric, show coats we have never seen, fabulous winter wear, tack, everything. We went shopping there, very successfully (well, unsuccessfully if you asked our bank accounts…..)
After a few days we flew to Ireland. This all started at Fair Hill when Will Coleman insisted to us over drinks (definitely plural) that we should all go meet up with him for the Irish auction. We agreed, and so there we were landing in Ireland. We decided not to go straight to the auction, but rather to spend two days visiting all the breeding barns and the heavy hitting resale barns to see what they had in stock.
We went everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Ringwood, Ballingowan, Ballynoe, Fernhill, and a million places you have never heard of. A few things struck me:
1. It is very cold in Ireland.
2. It is VERY VERY wet. Like up to my knees in mud wet. Everywhere. Rings, barns, roads….everywhere.
3. The farms are not equine palaces. They are certainly nice places run by WONDERFUL people, but oh lordy not what I was exactly expecting. I spent the days knee deep in mud trying to figure out how, exactly, a horse moved.
4. They all free jump there. It is a huge part of the horse’s development. And these are not lovely indoors, these are literally plywood shacks with some corrugated steel roofing with a few poles in them. The poles are placed on a barrel on one side and there are two holes in the wall. Two. So you can do pole on the ground, a 3’ 6” vertical, or a 3’6” oxer with a huge spread. No variation, no “knocking down the rail,” just jumping and clearing.
So no champagne, no warmth, no dry footing, nada. This is how it goes:
You pull into a farm, tell them you want to see everything that is high quality between 3 years old and a two star with a "lot of blood" (tons of TB). They start grabbing horses out of every stall and field, have the neighbors haul some over, etc., and one by one present them in hand. They stand there, spout off the breeding, then jog them up and back. You say yes or no, and go through all 15-30 this way per barn. Then you rank them according to what you want to see first. I was always recording, Connor and Skye riding, so we would have horses brought out two at a time. They would start working and sometimes we immediately said no, sometimes it made it through w/t/c and jumping. If so, Connor or Skye jumped on. At any moment there were four horses in the ring/field/whatever. Two being “shown,” and two with Skye and Connor on. In this way, we would see 20 in an hour if we were hustling. We were working against daylight (NO indoors to be seen).
I did the math, and we saw over 100 horses under saddle in our trip, probably 140-150 overall. We did go to the auction the last night and stay in a four star hotel, but that was one night and by then all I wanted to do was sleep and thaw from 6 days of cold.
We vetted two. Why? We saw SO MANY fabulous horses, well-trained horses, great minds, etc. However, there just aren’t that many horses that have the traits we personally prefer. We want something with a lot of TB, too hot for the average person, very light when they land (we have that hard ground!),with a great mind and nice movement, good instincts, etc. This is surprisingly hard to find. If we were shopping for AMAZING prelim horses for clients, we would have had them by the thousands. However, we want horses that have no apparent reason they won’t be a great Advanced horse. A winning Advanced horse. There were five horses I would have loved to own for myself, as an adult amateur to compete all the way, but they wouldn’t be the types that can win the big international divisions and make a team with a professional. We wanted those horses. The professionals just plain don’t sell them for the most part since that is their goal as well. We found the best quality in the four year olds at the breeding farms. We vetted two, ironically after our world travels the two were from the same little farm, and one passed. So, a week of international travel, a goal of four horses, a flexible budget, every stop you could dream of, and we have one to bring home. We were/are open to anything: OTTBs, backyard beauties, American bred, international, ANYTHING amazing.
It was a learning experience, a TON of work, very little fun, and it is hard to not get frustrated. Then again, if astounding horses fell from the sky everyone would have one. In the meantime, I am back to work on my two OTTBs, who, honest to God, I couldn’t have been happier to see upon my return. What did I learn about myself? If you gave me all the money in the world and let me fly all over, odds are I would end up buying another OTTB. Can’t put a price on heart. I am learning that in life the dreams you think you have actually don’t work in reality, and sometimes everything you could possibly want is already in your stall.
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