Ye Ole DreamHorse.com

Hormones are great for so many things.  This whole pregnancy roller coaster has me acting (only slightly) erratically, but really the biggest change I've noticed is that if I decide I need to do something, omg it has to happen right now.  That's helpful for things like.. laundry and vacuuming, but maybe less helpful with financial decisions, or say... anything to do with the horses.

All things considered the horsey aspect of our new "family planning" is going well.  I feel great about where Prairie is, and also about the half lease that will help cover her costs and keep her showing.  Gus has a good short term plan, and likely long term plan of his own.  

P remains the only wildcard.  She continues to be a happy horse up north with my good friend, but it's pushing a year and I'd really rather not wear out my welcome to the point of having the mare dropped on my doorstep in the middle of the night.  

There's been a fairly concerted informal search to find the P a perfect next home, but nothing has borne fruit.  The Boy (bless him) is very, very tolerant of the horse spending and isn't so much putting his foot down as he is making sure that I'm getting all the horsey affairs in order before Baby arrives.  Realistically, at this point that means I need to step up the efforts to find P her next place. 

Pretty Red Mare

Enter - ye ole DreamHorse.com.  I hate officially listing horses.  I pretty much hate any process of trying to summarize anything in 1500 characters or less (You will not be surprised to learn that I am not on Twitter).  While I am the queen of writing other people's resumes or helping fill out online dating profiles (I'd claim that I'm the downright BEST at that) - when it comes to myself (or my own ponies) I find it really, really daunting to smoosh everything down into a reasonably sized nutshell.

Especially with the P.  Her story is so complicated and has so many ups and downs I'm tempted to just link the ad to the blog and be like "here.  Read all of this.  If you still like her, call me."

There are lots of things to consider with P.  For one thing, I think it will be moderately difficult to find her a home where she will be set up to succeed.  That would mean someplace with lots of turnout, not too much time in a stall (but a stall for rainy days!) and the right feed/training philosophy to allow for her... um, quirks.  

I still think that with the right person this mare has a very bright athletic future, but without a perfect match I think a life as a broodmare or trail horse is much more realistic.  

So then, how do I describe that?  "If you're badass this mare will take you flying on XC, but if you're not, just use her to make cute babies?"  That's a terrible ad.  

I figure I'd rather undersell her, than oversell her - but even then I've seen horror stories with people selling beautifully bred mares as "broodmare only."  Someone always seems to think that they might be able to miraculously heal a chronic injury and end up with a fabulous competition horse at a bargain basement price.

Although that's not my precise situation, I still hymmed and hawed over what to list as the mare's "price."  One one very candid hand I would consider giving her away outright to the perfect home, but on another more practical hand I know what kind of crowd comes out of the woodwork for a "free horse" and I'd like to avoid both the total weirdos with unrealistic expectations as well as people who are looking for a "free horse" because they can't actually afford properly caring for one.  

Ultimately I settled on $3,500.  That may not be right, but her breeding is not so bad (Wistar, Wishes & Dreams, Weltmeyer...) plus she's pretty, and sound, and not dead yet.  

So there we have it.  The P is on the market.  I really hope I find the right human for her - she deserves it and I wholeheartedly feel like she has a lot to give.  If I truly thought she wasn't capable, I wouldn't be looking for a home,  However, I do believe in full disclosure and have no qualms about a potential buyer finding this blog.  In fact, it would probably save me the trouble of trying to rehash our travails together.  

Fingers crossed for the right person.