Horse Hunting

Buying a new horse is a time consuming and frustrating process. With our herd aging (all out horses are between 11 and 20 years old) we need to start looking for some new acquisitions. Our non-profit support group, the Fort Huachuca Cavalry Association, ran "horse wanted" ad in the local paper. The requirements for cavalry horses are somewhat detailed so the ad pointed readers to their web site which outlined the requirements. The ad started out slow but by the second week we were getting a good number of calls. A good number in the sense that we were getting more calls than we could handle. Debbie followed up on the calls to inquire about the horses offered and found that they all met the initial requirements. Displaying the requirements on the web site cut out a lot of the calls from people wanting to sell mares or paints or physically unsound horses. Now the project is not so much eliminating the impossible but choosing among the best. We have examined up to four horses so far and have come up with two possibles. Two were eliminated already--one during our temperament check (fear of gunfire) and one during the vet exam (arthritis). We checked out another horse that passed the vet exam but we think it is a little small and its conformation isn't all that good so we are holding off on that one. We looked at another on Friday that looked very promising but since the vet is out of town this week, we have to hold off on the physical exam. It's nice to have some actual choices and the ad process worked very well. We were fortunate that the newspaper publisher, Sierra Vista Herald, ran the ad for free in thanks for our service to the community. Now that's community support.