maybe we should just go back to the old turn of the century term "horse trader" which has a bad connotation meaning an unethical business person. My daughter always wanted to ride stonewall because he "isnt pokey like jaspar". Her is very very flashy under saddle. I told her she could ride stonewall after taking lessons six months and buying all sorts of protective gear. For six months she gave me updates on her lessons at this big fancy orlando area facility where she was taking lessons. She had run out and bought herself some ariat ropers and a troxel helmet for her first lesson and some stretchy yoga pants from walmart like i wear a lot. After her first lesson she calls, she needs ariat pants, they are like, 200 bucks. And she said "my boots and hat are embarassing mom" and after the third lesson she has bought 400 dollar ariat maestro high boots and a helmet that cost 300 bucks. After two months she is telling me what a boring old nag her lesson horse is and telling me what magnificent jumping thoroughbreds they have at this facility and how "and wow mom they have some for sale" and she starts sending me urls of horses they have for sale, cheap ones, for 20,000-30,000 bucks. Thats when I started trying to put the brakes on but it was too late! She started arguing with me then, telling me how they said if she'd buy one of their horses she could make payments AND have FREE lessons for a year. Then she comes home, we saddle up stonewall. She has on her thousand dollars worth of fancy stuff, she gets on him and they ride around the yard. she is posting even tho he is racking smooth as silk. I ask her why and she said "oh mom just let me show you what I know," and I shut up, she was right. Then as soon as stonewall detected she was slightly less that 200% hypervigilant he WHIRLDdddddddd and bolted about 20 yards. I could see by his expression he was delighted with himself. She scooted off terrified and says now she cant ever ride any horse but jaspar again because she is afraid of horses. sigh. but thank goodness she was saved from the orlando horse traders before going into debt 20,000 bucks on a horse that was probably garbage to begin with, that she'd never be able to sell.
Janice -- yipie tie yie yo
