by Laura Sullivanlyndall

Created on: May 18, 2009   Last Updated: August 09, 2009

Should you take a free horse? I say no, for several reasons! The biggest reason is experience. I have been around horses most of my life and riding since I was three. I remember when I was a child from time to time one of our horses would get sick. When we would have a sick horse, we would have to call the vet. Regardless of how big or little the illness or injury was, the bill for a vet who spent 10 years going to college was always a couple of hundred dollars and up. This would cover the cost of the house call, travel time, care time, and medication. Now if we were rich it wouldn't be a problem at all. However, whether you can afford the care or not is not the only reason I say no. Horses in general are expensive to care for and free horses are even more expensive as well harder to deal with.

Even horses that are rescued and placed in homes are done so with a fee and even special rules at times. For example, mustangs that are taken from state to state to be placed in homes are adopted out for as little as a $25 adoption fee. This really just covers paper work with these mustangs so really they are free. However, the adoption agencies over seeing these animals being placed in good homes reign for three years. They can and will check on the animals at least one and often more times during the three years. One rule is, because they were wild, you can not have a barb wire fence for their home. They can run through the fence and get hurt. Putting up a wood fence around a piece of property big enough to accomidate a mustange is expensive. In addition, these animals once loose may resort back to their wild roots, meaning they may be hard to catch to care for daily, such as brushing, bathing, worming, and hoof care.

For the most part, horses that are being given away often come with strings attached. By this, I mean there is almost always something wrong with the horse. I have taken in four horses in the past 10 years that were free. They were all from different owners, and every single one had it's own issues. The first horse I got was a nice little bay mare, Cheyenne. She was beautiful, in great condition, and broke to ride. After getting thrown, I later found out by a friend of the original owner that the owner got rid of the horse because she threw her husband and broke his ribs. No big deal, I've been thrown before and have experience in breaking horses. However, with this horse I soon found that the more I worked with her to break her, the more she threw

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>