Guilt In Letting Go
Horse ownership is a joy and a responsibility. Some horse owners are able to buy and keep the same horse for its entire life. But not all of us can keep the same horse for years or even decades. Whether you are a junior who outgrew a pony, a competitive amateur who needed the next mount to move up to competitive goals, or life stepped in the way and owning your horse was no longer the best move for both of you, there are countless reasons why owners sell their horses.
When you have made the difficult decision to sell your horse, you do so with apprehensions that your former partner will be able to have as good a home with the next person as he or she did with you. We have all heard of those horror stories where someone’s former beloved pet ends up getting abused or neglected, or worse, ends up on a truck headed for the dreaded “glue factory.”
To avoid this tragic outcome, responsible horse owners have come up with various ways to ensure their horse’s future remains safe and stable. Microchipping and registering the horse allows you to track the horse throughout its competitive career. The microchip requirement that has been in effect for several years prevents new owners from just re-registering the horse with a new name and allows for better tracking.
If you want to be a little more formal about your efforts, you can do like I did and include a right of first refusal provision in your sale contract. When I sold my horses, I included this provision so that if another prospective buyer comes along and offers to buy the horse, I get the first offer to buy the horse for the same price. I did not include it with the intention of getting first dibs on a good deal, but rather allowed me to step in the event my horse was being sold for a nominal
amount and may end up in the “wrong hands.”
A less formal method of staying in the horse’s life is to just keep in touch with the new owners, whether through texting, calls, or social media. If the new owner wants to sell, they already have an interested buyer.
In the last several months, I have had the new owners contact me about two of the horses I have sold. Right now, horse ownership is so expensive and I own and board one horse. I have neither the time nor the finances for another horse at the moment. So I had to pass on exercising my right of first refusal. But in doing so, I feel weighed down with guilt. What happens when my old horse goes to the next buyer and the next? How will I keep track of them then?
How much do I owe these horses?
I try to let myself off the hook for this guilt. When I did own these horses, I kept them healthy and gave them good training so they would have a job. They were safe and could do all the things that would allow the next person to enjoy them- stand for farrier, load, rideability, etc. I like to think that they were better after I owned them than before.
So should I feel guilty? Should I take the plunge and try to figure out how to own another horse? The simple reality is that I have to accept there are things I cannot control. I cannot control the fate of every horse I ever own. I do not own a retirement farm where I can just let them live out the rest of their days (yet). Does that make me a bad hose owner? I hope not.
I have done what I can for my former partners and at some point, I have to hope the next owner will be as good as, if not better than me. One of my old mounts is now being loved on by a teenage girl. She is definitely getting more love and attention than I could afford her at this point, now that I have a career, kids, and other demands on my time. We all would like to keep every horse we ever owned. They were our friends, we loved them and they are a part of our story. But I can not
keep them all, so I will do what I can while I have them and let the universe take care of the rest. Yet I will probably still lose sleep wondering if that is enough.