In the past people who were shopping for a new horse sometimes contacted me. They would ask for my advice. From time to time when they found a horse they seriously liked, they would ask me to assess it for them. It has been my experience that more times than not the people had already made up their mind to buy the horse by the time they asked me to look at it. It was as if they were really looking for a nod of approval from me rather than an honest opinion.

Many years ago a fellow of mediocre ability who was looking for a new competition prospect for dressage contacted me. He had a lot of money to spend and had decided to splurge big and buy a horse that had the potential to go to the top. I looked at three horses for him. All three were pretty nice horses. But none of them were suitable for him. The first was a 6-year-old gelding for $10,000. The second was a 5 year old for $18,000 and the third was a green broke 4-year old for $45,000. As you can guess, my client favoured the 4-year-old. The bloodlines, the movement, the size, and the price impressed him. It was a good horse, but of all of them, it was the least suitable for his ability.

I recommended that he did not buy any of the horses and I gave my reasons. But I said if he was to buy one I would suggest it was the 6 years old because it had the most training. But he wanted the 4-year-old because he was convinced it had the potential to be a top-level dressage horse.

I agreed with him that it could do really well in the future. But I reminded him that he had never ridden beyond medium level dressage. He had no experience with taking a horse to Grand Prix. I bluntly told him that he was unlikely to get the best out of the horse because he lacked experience, was a nervous rider and didn’t have the time to commit to riding 6 days a week for 8 years. I said that if he was going to screw up a horse he should buy the 6-year-old to screw up and save himself $35,000. There was no point in spending $45,000 on ruining a horse when you could do it $10,000!

Of course, he bought the $45,000 horse and screwed it up. He took it to three different trainers over 2 ½ years and the last I heard it was for sale for $12,000.

We are the biggest limitation of our horse’s progress. Very, very (and again very) few people in the world (if anybody) have the ability to tap into a horse’s full capabilities. Most of us are unable to get the best from a horse worth $500 let alone a horse worth $50,000.

We dream of the perfect horse that is going to be everything we would ever want from our horse. They will make us look like a God in the world of horsemanship and competition. But the truth is that most of the time we look like the village idiot in a village filled with idiots.

There is an old Chinese story that I will try to shorten, but which I think is relevant to this post.

A fellow met an old friend in the village. They swapped stories and when the friend asked the fellow what he had been doing all these years the reply was that he had been looking for the perfect wife. He said I found a wonderful woman. She was beautiful and young. She was perfect. The friend asked if he married her.

“No,” said the fellow. “She was beautiful and young, but she did not want to do housework or cook. So I kept looking and found a woman who liked to cook and clean and she was beautiful and young. She was perfect.”

“Did you marry her?”

“No. She didn’t want to have a family. So I kept looking until I eventually met a beautiful, young woman who could cook and clean and wanted to have children. She was perfect.”

“So did you marry her?”

“No,” replied the fellow.

“Why not,” asked the friend?

“She was looking for the perfect husband.”