Horse Shopping Was a "Cinch"

As much as we didn't need something else to do in the next couple of months, we knew we needed to horse shopping. It's a daunting task at best; there's lots of driving involved...no horse is ever within an hours drive or the same state...at least not the one you want to look at.
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Why another horse? Well, in all honesty, Hannah had a disconnect moment with Star about 3 months ago when she tried to buck her off bareback while I was leading her from the pasture, and after that, she lost all connection with her. If you've never had a horse/rider connection or had a horse as pet, then you have no idea what I'm talking about, but if you have, then you get it.

The reason she bucked, we never knew why. She never had before, but Star made the connection between buck and rider gets off and after that day, everytime Hannah got on,Star would start doing tiny crow-hops or baby bucks to scare her off. Horses re pretty good at connecting the dots. All it would have took was for Hannah to stay on her through the bucks just once, to hang on and rip into her and say "I'm in charge" and Star would've realized who the boss was, but Hannah is not that type of rider. She is not extremely aggressive, and the fact that she has spent more time fighting with Star in the saddle over the past 2 1/2 years than enjoying the sport, has caused her riding skills to stall.

Two weeks ago, Carl called a man in Nachitoches about a horse named Skip, and come to find out, we'd missed Skip by about an hour. He'd just been sold. Turns out he wasn't a "kid friendly" horse anyway. BUT, the guys said, "we do have another horse that would be perfect for your daughter, but he's promised to a lady in Oklahoma". It was Cinch he was talking about, and he was trading him for some cows, to a lady in Oklahoma, who wanted to team rope off him. He said the horse belonged to his wife, so he'd talk to her because the decision was ultimately hers to make. She decided she'd rather Cinch go to a little girl instead, so she gave us the go ahead to come up and take a test ride.

Hannah fell in love with him. He was a pretty Red Roan Quarter Horse...12 years young and gentle as a lamb. We came back the next week and brought him to the stable for a 30 day trial period. We're about 1/2 way through it and we're pretty sure he's staying.

So why not get rid of Star? Because she only bucks off Hannah, not me or Carl..she's always had a preference for me anyway, I'm not sure why, but she loves me and I love her. Quite simply, I won't let Carl get rid of her. She's a kid size horse who bucks off kids...who'd buy her and be good to her? No one. On the upside, she's an easy keeper..her teeth are great, her hooves are fabulous, her weight is perfect, her ground manners are top-notch (because I work on them several times a week) and she'll be a good companion horse for Cinch. Besides, we've got 5 acres and Carl is only planning on mowing 1 1/2 acres of it.