Every Horse Needs “Maintenance”
Scroll through your average horse-related Facebook group and you’ll see the posts – they’re generally those searching for a horse for sale and they list a specific set of requirements.
Age, height, ability and suitability for a specific job are the basics. And then there are the personal preferences – maybe a specific color, a gelding vs. mare, geographic location. But too often, we’re now seeing requests that are just downright … unrealistic. The one that irks me the most is… “no maintenance.”
The term “maintenance” generally refers to a horse that requires some help health-wise to keep performing as a sport horse. Joint injections, special shoeing, routine bodywork or the like in order to keep jumping or to stay sound at a certain level for competition. This is actually quite common, especially for a horse with years of experience. These horses are athletes, and thus, they need some basic care to keep them healthy enough to perform.
But the expectation to buy a horse that magically needs “no maintenance” is honestly, not based in reality.
If you want to buy a horse for sport, and expect that horse to perform and compete in sport, it is on you as the horse’s owner to do everything in your power to give that horse what his mind and body needs in order to excel in his job. Hoping to find that “unicorn” that can endure the job without maintenance is irresponsible, in my opinion. As a seller, I am less likely to want to send my horse off into your care if this is what you are searching for.
Horses are expensive. Horses who compete for sport are even more costly. If this is what you are after, you should be prepared for the responsibilities it requires to care for this horse and keep him healthy. It’s the least we can do for them, after asking them to do this job for merely a ribbon for us.