Mango Tango

What do sane people do for Mother's Day with their family?  Let me guess, its not drive 12 hours round trip to buy a pony on the cheap?  Well we don't roll that way.

I'd thought about getting a pony for a while now.  They're cute, fun, and easy to get on.  Oh and I have a child now so that's a totally legit reason for me to get another horse to train.  For my son.  Right?  Anyone believing this?  Me either, well maybe a little.  So the shopping began.

Its me and if you can't figure it out, I'm looking for a bargain.  Shopping for a pony is very different from shopping for a horse.  First, people looking for a horse in some way, shape or form understand this thing can kill them.  Or at least cause injury.  Ponies?  Apparently the people buying them on the cheap don't understand at all.  I found sooooo many ads for ponies being dumped for basically not being bicycles for their kids.  Not "teaching their child to ride" and all sorts of other depressing things.


Their loss is my gain though.

I wanted something I could register, preferred a mare (see a trend going?), and I wanted it to be able to be ridden by myself.  At 5'9" and 200 lbs at the time, it was going to take some doing.  I also wanted something with color because for resale it would probably be better.  Oh and its fun.  I have issues...

I found this cute (but HUGE) pony on Dreamhorse and contacted those people.  Much like Piper her price was all over the place on the internet so I was curious.  Short version (the lady talked to me for 2+ hours o.O), the mare had been rodeoed on and was well trained in roping, poles, etc and ridden by those trainers' 7 year old son.  They'd gotten the mare for some $$$ thinking their very beginner daughter could ride the mare in 4H and endurance.

Not so much.

The daughter was unwilling to ride the mare outside the round pen and generally grew to hate her.  Sad, but enter me.  I talked to the owner on Saturday and on Sunday we drove to North Texas.   Like, almost Oklahoma, Texas.  It was 6 hours each way but my lovely husband is insane enough like me that we thought nothing of it.  With our brand new truck and crappy old Shelby trailer with very outdated plates, we made the trip.

When I make a trip to see a cheap horse, I'm normally 80% sure I'm going to get it.  The other 20% is going to depend on what I see in person but I'm normally sold before I get there.  Years of scrounging the bargain bins for horses makes you clever and quick to ask "the right" questions.  So basically, we had cash in the truck and ready to rock if we wanted.

Upon arrival we were greeted by... no one.  

Well then.  We parked where we thought was best and the house and barn were very adorable.  The land was about 100 acres of lush grass - did I mention this mare had put on a TON of weight in the 3 months these people owned her?  No, well she did.  After about 10 minutes the people drove "from up the road" and met up.  The lady brought the mare out of the barn and I did a few groundwork exercises before tossing my child on the pony (bareback).  She was literally that calm (I'm not that careless about my kid, no worries :P).  We did some trot circles and I said sold.

So Mango came home with us on Mother's Day, 2013.  Another project horse in the making.