An amazing horse for sale; I'd love some input from the forum!

This horse appears to be the most versitile, phenominally well-trained, truly bomb-proof, (yet obviously full of life and "love of work") horse whom I could ever imagine being out there in the world of possibilities...

This is a basic shout out to BOTH the seasoned experts (MFQuarters, smrobs, allisonfinch, TinyLiny, Endiku, etc...) AND the newbies here, everyone with all manner of varying expertise and horse related experiences; EVERYONE and anyone interested in sharing their opinion on this beautiful and brilliant- seeming boy!

And...for the record, please let me be absolutely clear, so as not to run into a similar problem as I did with a different request for information I put up a while back on a horse ad from You Tube. This is DEFINITELY a horse I would be interested in buying/ A horse I would purchase, IF everything was a good match, IF he is as healthy and sound after a PPE as he appears to my novice eye, and his current owners are willing to consider me as his future mom...

Especially given his incredible talents, I honestly feel embarassed approaching the owners regarding discussing him, meeting him, getting a PPE if the meeting and ride go well and making a purchase offer...He would be my first horse and he is clearly far more experienced than I, that goes without saying.

I cannot imagine someone wanting to sell to a person who simply wants to enjoy riding and loving their animal and not use him for any particular discipline, showing, ranch work, etc...after having put the kind of work and effort into his training as they obviously have. That said, I cannot see the future, and the possibility DOES always exist that someday in the near future, as my riding improves more and more with time, and a bond forms with that "special horse", perhaps we WOULD decide to look into endurance more seriously, or perhaps something else entirely (being an RN and having rescue qualifications, I've often considered wanting to join our all volunteer Mounted Search and Rescue Possee here in Az, as part of the Sherriff's dept. And this boy would certainly fit the bill for that sort of work, I am guessing. Desensitization/being "bomb-proof" is one of their main qualifications. I cannot even imagine how incredible of an experience that could be...being out there with my horse, the two of us and a bunch of other folks working hard to find a missing individual or group of people...what a gift....

I believe my only saving grace in being considered by the owners of "bullet" as a possible purchaser is that they have apparently lowered his price recently, which indicates to me that they may be having trouble finding buyers, and thus may be more willing to accept the fact that, while he will have a safe and loving and absolutely devoted family and future care for his lifetime, perhaps he will not have the opportunity to do all the things they would have hoped for him to do.

On the other hand, it sounds like they do not want him worked HARD or in speed events, which common sense indicates to me that he could either have a lameness issue, a prior injury, or perhaps the current owners simply don't want to see him burning out early? Does that happen with the western speed events and horses? I apologize for my ignorance, but having never ridden western, I have zero knowledge as to whether running barrels and gymkhana event horses experience similar rapid breakdown at early ages, such as you would find with starting a jumper out too early, too big, and jumping too often...I can assume that would be the case, and perhaps that is what they are afraid could happen with him?

Thus, my question: Please, any of y'all who would be interested in providing any sort of a critique of any aspect of him, any advice based upon what you see in the photos and the AMAZING video they shot of him, just some commentary about what life with this sort of horse would be like... anything helpful at ALL, (even someone telling me that he would be wasted on me and he's much too good for me!) ; because from what I can see he is incredible. Anything such as that, (preferring that you are polite at least with me, however?) is completely welcomed here!

Price Reduced!competitive Trail/anything Safe Gelding

Link not working.

Oh crud. I even tried it first!...What did it direct you to? I'll repost it, but from your end, did it just not direct you anyplace, or was it not to the correct horse (something totally different than what I had described?)....
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Price Reduced!competitive Trail/anything Safe Gelding

Well, before I have received your response, I just tried it from my HF post to my cell, and again it worked for me (original posting was put up on my desktop computer), so perhaps it's on your end that it isn't able to link? Anyone else unable to get to it??
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Took me to the beautiful buckskin's ad..lol.

I'd say go for it. If you're willing to pay a reasonable price that someone interested in showing is then I see no reason they would say no. He looks like a great horse to learn on.

When I sell Alahna I could care less if she goes to a 4h showing home (my intent) or a little girl/boy who wants to learn the basics and go for trail rides. BUT, the little kid's parent (s) have to be willing to pay the price for not only the fact that she's kid safe and a lesson horse, but she's also a finished gamer with someone a little larger (14-18yr maybe?) that can take every class if you know what you're doing and can handle a little more speed.

Anywho..got a bit sidetracked, it does relate though, lol. Point is, unless they're dead set on a show home, you have every chance that a show home will have to buy him. You might have to offer more if they're dead set on a show home if someone else comes along that plans to show and offers the same price as you or more.
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Thank you, Iseul! I am very happy the link is working, as I tend to have an awful lot of trouble with linking things in general.

That is good insight regarding what they may be looking for (though it really didn't sound to me like they had anything SPECIFIC in mind, I guess I just felt like they very clearly put tremendous work into him, which would NOT go at all unappreciated, as it would make for my first horse ownership experience to G-d willing, be an amazing one!) I suppose that if he ended up being perfect and I was already going to spend $10k, a bit more would certainly NOT take him out of the running!

Any thoughts on his abilities, or does he look in any manner unsound to the more trained eye? What is your feeling as to why they mentioned not wanting him in "speed events"?

Thank you again for your input!

My first thought about them not wanting him in speed events is either he doesn't have the mentality for it, or they started out running him in games and he turned insane, prancy, gate/arena sour, etc. Or they just don't trust anyone around to try and run barrels on him because of how they've seen local racers ride (not to say that's truth though).

I personally don't see anything pointing to him being unsound. He trips over the big fluffy animals/balls, but I'm sure any horse will do that (I personally wouldn't have put that in my sale video though).

The only thing I really see about him that I don't particularly like is that it looked like his rider was riding with constant contact on a curb bit..big no no, but I'll bet that's why he flicks his head every so often. The other thing is that he doesn't look very content just standing..he wants to move. I like my horses to just relax and stand, not take a step forward here and there. I get tired of moving around at shows and really like just standing in my little patch of shade chatting with a friend. Or if I feel like having a cigarette on the trail and the wind is blowing..my horse had better stand there after I whoa and drop my reins to light one.

Other than those two small things, I don't see anything I don't like about him..Love his colour, he seems pretty sane and cooperative, he's that perfect adorable size, and he's a paint..lol.

Oh, I don't think their ad made it seem like they were leaning towards a show home, I think it's worded as such to justify why his price is so high (we have $100-1000 horses over here right now lol), not that they want him to go to a show home. And if anything, I'm sure you'd eventually love competitive trail rides, I'm going to my first few this year on my new mare..so we need to kick her training up a notch near the end of this month after she's hopefully put some weight on, haha.
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Not a bad looking horse! I have a few thoughts. I rarely critique on here because I am the first to admit that I am extremely picky.

Did look at their website, he is listed in a couple of places and it says he has gate issues, that is why they don't want him going to a speed home. That says to me he has the capability to get hot, has possibly been arena soured and given the length of rein he's worked on in the video and him fussing with the bit (the bit part very well could just be the rider in his face annoying him) I would suspect that it may be more than just with a gate. He tolerated everything thrown at him in that vid but I'd like to see him handle it quietly on a much looser rein myself. He didn't seem off anywhere watching the vid but I have to admit that the rider's hands were distracting me. I will watch it again and try to watch just the horse ;)

I'm not in touch with market and prices in your area but I know where I am at in that range you could get a lot more horse for your money with a better handle on it.

Would really like to see proper confo shots before making any judgements there. He looks like he's a decently put together horse but it's tough to call when most are action shots.

My honest opinion? I have a horse that sounds EXACTLY like this guy (only younger). And I got him for FREE. If you are willing to pay $9500 that is your prerogative, but even though he sounds like a great horse, he is way overpriced imho. I have purchased a few horses in my time and have been blessed to own some wonderful animals....however I never paid more than $500 for any of them.

Just my 2 cents. If you like him that much and you can afford it, why not go try him out? Good luck!

Hmmmm........I was not as impressed as I should be for the price, honestly. He is beautiful for sure, and very capable. I have no idea what your abilities are, but keep in mind that most of the "bombproof" stuff they did was in a roundpen, and he was far from as relaxed as I would like to see him. He was doing a bit of head throwing and she rider was pulling on him some of the time. I would have liked to see a relaxed horse-loose rein. I also think he can be strong at the lope out in the open-the rider needed more contact than I personally prefer. I would like to see him loping along nicely, head relaxed, loose rein.

There is a member here who actually trains mounted police horses and I would love to see her thoughts-Perhaps if you message her she would answer. She has not been around much lately. Gentle Dove Farm is her name. Honestly, my guy will do all of that too, plus he is reining trained-also a grade, younger, and I would be thrilled (if he was for sale) to get 7K for him, but that isn't even realistic.

I would also caution you that a horse with this type of training may not necessarily be a horse who does ring work, so if that is something you want to do some of, this may not be the horse for you. (like pleasure classes, etc). Mine was an awesome trail horse when I bought him-can put a monkey on him on the trails-but needed tons of work to do ring work (which I wanted also). And-just because he will walk right on to a stock trailer he may not load in a regular one.

So, I like him, love that he is barefoot, looks to be an easy keeper, but personally I think he is overpriced, given the current market. JMHO.