smellshorsey

Looking for Hay Alternatives

My hay supply is dwindling and although my pasture is green, it isn't enough. I have to feed hay all year. The thought of doing what I have to do -- find hay and stock up for the coming winter -- makes me tired just to think about.

The hay fields have been converted to corn fields to make fuel for me to burn in my car. Other countries are buying up our hay crop. I wonder if this summer will be yet another drought? The price of gas and fertilizer will drive the hay prices up whether or not we have enough rain. Ouch!

The two hay suppliers I consider friends have more friends these days than your average philanthropist. I may start baking cakes for them and other bribes. I do so hate to beg but beg I will. And then pay a fortune.

If you search for "hay alternatives" on the 'net you'll find out all kinds of information that basically says there are alternatives but none as good as hay (except maybe alfalfa cubes). Beet pulp is easy and readily available (and really fattening) but it can only be part of the solution. Shoot.

Many alternatives, such as haylage, apparently carry the risk of botulism. And I don't think I can get my horses to eat ground up peanut shells. I don't even want them to.

Anybody have any success with "alternative fuel" for horses? I hope some feed company is out there working for a solution, because we're certainly ready for one. I've checked several feed manufacturer sites and nobody's talking about developing a hay alternative.

I can't use round bales. Colic, colic, colic. It has to be good hay. Horse quality hay. Hay that was babied from the moment it sprouted to the day it was baled. I feed it to them on a swept concrete pad, which seems to cut down on waste.

Sigh. Since when did dry grass get to be such a rare commodity?

Some Professional Advice on "To Breed or Not to Breed?"

Thanks for all your comments on "To Breed or Not to Breed?" Breeding a nice mare to a nice stallion and wanting to keep the offspring (assuming said offspring lives, etc.) in spite of what Fugly says has many benefits, ranging from just plain fun to learning about life to, as MiKael pointed out, being allowed to follow your dream. Is there anything more important than that?

So, I called my niece, the horse vet, for professional advice on what to do next and her opinion on the whole project. If I was hoping for an endorsement, perhaps I should have called someone else.

"Oh, Anne! You DON'T want to do that," she said. Her passionate, unequivocally negative response surprised me.

"I don't?" I said, shocked and disappointed.

"Absolutely not. I've seen so many bad horses that were raised by mother-daughter owners. Some of the worst horses I deal with.  Not that you and Lily would necessarily ruin the horse, maybe if you had good professional help you wouldn't, but horses raised as pets in the yard usually don't understand that they are horses," she said. "If it's a male you could geld it and cut off some of those problems, but you'd still have to discipline yourselves to treating it like a horse."

Now, she loves me and knows me. On the plus side, this reaction means she thinks that I'm basically a kind (pushover) person whose existing horses are pets but were, fortunately, raised by someone else. So I'm not insulted even if I am shocked. I do indulge my animals, husband and daughter. And myself. (I'm working on denying myself chocolate.)

But I'd never thought about this pitfall before. "You'd need to treat the foal like a horse, treat it like its mother treats it. Train it and ignore it," she said. But it's so cute! How could we do that? I guess that's her point.

So I said, "What if we got professional help and didn't ruin the horse?" So we talked about who could help us, how it should be done, the perils of pregnancy and birth and the heartbreak that can happen. We talked about the expense and the stallions under consideration.

She said, "I don't think you or Lily could handle it if something went wrong. Bad wrong." She's the one I called when the hamster needed to be euthanized. She's the one who's seen us at our crazy worst with our pets. She has a point. But we're several dead cats and hamsters under the bridge, so to speak. And isn't this part of the learning process about following your dreams? That sometimes bad things happen and you have to take a detour, redirect, redream and try again another way? So I got her to go along with that.

But then we got to the thing that's probably going to stop me. Lily is 13. If we breed Lucy tomorrow and she foals next year, Lily will be 19 before she can start jumping the foal and really using him/her.

Sure, at 19 Lily could still be riding like a fiend and could somehow win enough scholarships to afford to go to college AND take a horse. But there's so much important in life that needs attention at that age. School, college decisions, boys, a social life. Will she still be my horse-loving girl? And if not.....? I guess we could sell the horse. But this isn't part of this dream.

Lily and I discussed the timing of all this, the foal's age and development and while she believes she will be riding and competing at Rolex in the near future -- and I hope she will but think her schedule is too optimistic by a decade or more and is certainly out of our budget -- she understood that she her goals and the foal's maturation rate don't coincide. Yes, she can be riding and training the baby before it's five, but she can't really be asking for hard physical  work.

More thinking to come, but that's today's state of mind.

She hasn't done all that Buddy can do. Or Lucy, either. I think I'm going to get her to sit down with one of her former trainers who competed at Radnor with an affordable QH and understands dreams and finances. Maybe if we set goals for this year, and next year, etc. Lily is a talented, dedicated rider, but doesn't know quite as much as she thinks she does.

This is tough and I don't want her life lesson about horses to be that it's all about the money. I want it to be that if your dream is big enough, you'll find a way.

To Breed or Not to Breed

Lucy's a smart girl. Here she is hoping for something. Food. An adventure. Maybe a boyfriend?

True, she's got Buddy to boss around. But perhaps she'd like somebody more studly. Like a real stud.

Lily has been dying to breed Lucy for several years. And now I wish we'd done it last year. At some point, Lily is going to want something fancier than Buddy. That could be Lucy, since Lucy is a lovely mover (though not fancy fancy). And she is as athletic as a cat, and way too smart. Lucy is 9, I think, and Buddy is 10. Or maybe they're both a year older. Lily is 13.

I don't know if I can or should convince Paul, but I'm looking into some of the studs in our area. Right now the leading contender is a lovely Hanoverian. Lucy is a nicely bred TB mare. I think this would make me a backyard breeder and on Fugly's bad list. Though breeding a registered, nice TB to an approved Hanoverian probably would keep me out of that category, though it still wouldn't mean I know what I'm doing. (I need to quit reading MiKael's blog or looking at all my neighbor's foals.)

My father, who would legitimately be on Fugly's bad side for all the mixed up horses he bred (and took care of and thought they were beautiful and useful, to his credit), said that having foals was one of the most fun things he remembers doing and what's wrong with us for not already having done it?

Paul ain't into extra horses. Vet bills. Random events, like taking a gamble on the gene pool and the birth process. He's also not into paying $$$ for a nice horse after Buddy has taken Lily as far as Buddy can go. So maybe there's hope for talking him into it.

It would be fun to raise a baby. I used to help my father. One of them was a cross between a Tennessee Walking Horse and a five-gaited mare. That horse was like a ten-speed. He could do any gait, though sometimes he got his feet tangled up. I made him walk, trot and canter (only) and taught him to jump. To my eyes he was a handsome thing. Here is one of the only photos I've got. Click to enlarge, if you wish. His name was Snuffy and he was a good sport. Because he was a mixed breed and wasn't at all delicate, he once stepped on a giant nail that went all the way up through his frog and the point stuck out above his pastern. He wasn't even lame. But back to the issue of breeding Lucy.

Lily has been forced to save money in a savings account since third grade that she can one day spend on something she really wants. She says this is what she really wants. I'm afraid the foal won't mature fast enough for her ambitions for it. And what if it's born with three legs? Fugly? Etc.?

I guess that would be a good life lesson.

And if we don't talk Paul into it? Well, there's always trickery. We simply don't know HOW Lucy got pregnant. Somebody must have hopped over the fence.

I would never do that. I don't think.

Where to Get Free Silk Flowers for Your Jumps

I'm afraid most of you are right. If I want flowers by my barn, I'd better get silk ones. Or maybe have hanging baskets or something that can be moved out of reach for when the horses are turned out nearby.

Which brings me to the subject of today's post: how and where to get free silk flowers for your jumps. The short answer: from a cemetery maintenance crew. With permission. (I'm not suggesting grave robbing here. I'm suggesting that you ask for the flowers that they would otherwise throw away.)

I used to work in an office across the street from a huge perpetual care cemetery. What perpetual care meant in this case is that all the grave markers were set flat into the ground so that the whole area could be mowed. Only certain flower containers were allowed, so if people wanted to put flowers on the grave, the only choice was to use silk flowers.

Whenever there would be a big storm, these silk flowers would take flight and blow across the street. They would mound up outside of my office window, which went all the way to the ground. There's nothing much sadder that a pile of wet silk flowers blown off of graves. I grew to hate the sight of them. A few weeks ago I drove down that street after our big wind storms and saw that there were silk flowers impaled in fences and other places where they had blown from the cemetery. It happens so regularly and seems so grotesque that it's like a Hitchcock movie that never got made. (Maybe the fact that I would sometimes see open caskets from my office window makes not be able to see these flowers-turned-trash as nothing more than flowers-turned-trash. They're ugly, sad trash escaped from the grave where they were placed by people who are missing someone they love.)

But one enterprising stable owner has developed a relationship with the maintenance people at the cemetery. After big storms when the flowers have blown all over the place, the maintenance people don't know which flowers go where, so they throw them all away (like they'd put them back, but that's another story). So this stable owner gets as many as she wants to use for decorating her jumps. It works for her. It's a good way to recycle something bound for the landfill. And there's an endless, endless supply.

Hay! I Just Paid $11.99 per Bale

Woo wee! I'm running out of hay, as I knew I would because we can only store so much. I just bought ten bales of Timothy and mixed grass for $11.99 per bale. Did I mention Buddy and Lucy eat a bale a day?

I also got a bag of alfalfa cubes. I'm not sure what I'm doing, but maybe they'll need less hay if they're getting soaked alfalfa cubes (I don't know what I'm doing but this is how I got through last spring when I ran out of hay so I know what I'm doing except how to buy enough hay for the winter).

I think I've found enough reasonably priced, quality Coastal Bermuda hay to get us through until first cutting. I'll know next week when it will also be delivered.  And I'm not telling a soul where it's coming from!

In the meantime, here's what the humans at my house are having for supper because of the price of hay. Have you seen the TV ads for this? It looks so tempting that Lily and I were all set to buy it -- until the last scene. 

What a Horse Girl Wants for Her 13th Birthday

Lily turned 13 last week. Her biggest desire is for the means to go places -- to Pony Club, horse shows, trail rides, whatever. So she was dying for a truck and either repainting our trailer or getting a new one. (Note: She's not old enough to drive. Yet.)

Fortunately for her, Paul's Passat died. I could write several pages about our disappointment with Volkswagens. I've driven nothing but VWs since 1979 and have had wonderful experiences driving them until the wheels fell off at 200,000+ miles. I love them! They're fun to drive and economical, too. But the Passats we recently bought were another story. Google VW oil sludge for massive complaints. Mine died last year and we had to sell it for junk, which it was. Paul's was recently diagnosed as having only three months to live, so in spite of being a relatively young car (for us), he had to get something else. (VW has some kind of loophole going where they're not responsible for the oil sludge problem unless you can document all your oil changes and show that you used nothing but synthetic oil. Since they didn't make this announcement until we had had the cars for a few years and didn't keep meticulous records of our oil changes, we were sunk. So we've divorced VW.)

Back to the dilemma. Does Paul get a car and we keep using Ben to pull the trailer? Or does Paul get something that can pull a trailer that he'll drive everyday?

After much angst, deliberation and finally resolve, he bought a two-year-old Yukon. The things you do for love! Now Lily can go places beyond the local farm where she takes her lessons. This was a surprise for her. Paul drove up in it for the first time while Lily was feeding the horses. She dropped everything and came running. I managed to catch a moment or two with my camera. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Pony Club

Lily was a member of the United States Pony Club for a couple of years when she was younger. I was also a member when I was a young teenager, though they weren't nearly as organized or picky then. I've written a little about them before here. Pony Club is why we have so many blue buckets.

Lily's 13th birthday is coming up and what she wants most of all is to re-join Pony Club. So I said yes and began the process.

I remember the people from before. They are horse moms who volunteer their time to help kids learn how to ride well and safely. They're concerned about the animal's welfare and teach the children and teenagers how to take the best care of their horses. It really is a wonderful organization filled with nice people and great kids.

But it's a little rigid. I couldn't find out if there was anyway to get Lily's application in fast enough for them to allow her to attend this coming weekend's meeting on horseback. Finally it became clear that I was the only one with a sense of urgency, which is fine because they are volunteers who have a life, too. It's not their fault that we didn't know we were going to re-join Pony Club until last week. Disappointing, though. I would have been glad to pay for FedEx or do whatever, if only somebody would answer my questions and say they'd help.

And though it's been more than two years since Lily was rated, which determines what a child can do at a meeting -- whether she's trotting over a pole over the ground or cantering a 3-foot course -- she'd have to ride with the group that has that low rating. I know, I know. They have their rules and there's a good reason for them. Lily is not too interested in riding at the level she was two years ago, and I'm not too interested in hauling her an hour-and-a-half one-way to a meeting to ride at that level, either.

And, since she's not been an active member, she can't go to the rallies.

Sigh. I can see when I'm whipped. And Lily's quite disappointed.

Maybe she can join next year and get re-rated. Trouble is, the next rating requires an extensive record-keeping history of the horse's condition, care and the money required to support this hobby. Lily's all set to do it and has started. I wonder if it will count since she's keeping the records while not a member?

I'm afraid I know the answer. They don't make it easy to meet the requirements or get the answers, which is a shame.

It's one thing to make the horses jump over fences. It's another to make the moms and kids jump through hoops.

I hope we can work it out in the future. I hate for her to miss out almost as much as I hate beating my head against a wall.

The Shopping Trip

For Christmas, Lily got some money that we told her she could use along with a coupon from our local (one county over) tack shop, which I was expecting to receive in January. It arrived. We went shopping. She also took the money she won in a piano competition. This was a power shopping trip, and I meant to take my camera.

I wasn't feeling well (vertigo, I think) so I'm glad they had chairs, because time doesn't fly when you are in a tack shop with a girl with money and dreams.

She tried on every pair of breeches in their sale room in the back. She wanted white ones for dressage, and there were very few. One of the most helpful sales people said, "We can't keep them clean. We keep them in the back." And low and behold, they had her size. Good deal, too.

Lily also got a schooling helmet (Troxel) for $20, an affordable show helmet, a show coat (with my 20 percent off coupon), some gloves to replace the ones she has that her fingers poke through, and a really cool saddle pad that has waterproof pouches to carry stuff. Because you never know what stuff you might need to carry.

No wonder the room kept spinning.

She left with $1.98. And a great big smile that I think will last for several days. Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy the accessories for a horse, which, when you are 12, equals happiness.

Pros and Cons of Living in a Horse Community

Many years ago a national horse magazine asked me to write a story about several very high-end horse communities. It was a "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" kind of piece, and since I'm a terribly jealous and covetous person, I found it hard going. It's the only time in my career that I got a kill fee for an article, which means I got paid for my work but they chose not to use it because I couldn't make it  splendid enough. I was not ill treated. It just wasn't a good match between author and subject.

While I love stuff and luxury as much if not more than the next person, there's a Calvinist side to me that is repulsed by excess. I don't need granite-topped counters in my tack room, and frankly, I don't think you do, either.

Do you ever think about how much we spend on our horses' health and well being (and food), and yet there are something like 23,000 people dying of starvation-related causes every day? I find this deeply troubling, so I don't think about it if I can help it.

If you live in one of those splendiferous places, well, I've mellowed to where I'm just plain jealous instead of judgmental and jealous. You have no idea how lucky you are.

And I'm very lucky, too. Because I have a horse, my health and a wonderful family. We live in a non-splendiferous but nice, friendly horse community.

We decided to move here because I was paying a lot for board, and it made sense to use that money to pay for a mortgage on a house where we could live with our horses. Our neighborhood was developed in the 1970s as a horse community and never really took off until recently. Before it took off, it was heaven. I know a woman who grew up here. She said that on Saturdays the neighborhood kids would mount up and go riding, not to be seen again until suppertime.

Each lot is a minimum of two acres and most people with horses have two or more lots. There are bridle paths between the houses and throughout the development. Unfortunately, as most of the original residents got rid of their horses when their children grew up, the bridle paths aren't maintained as they should be. In some cases, people have extended their fences to block the bridle paths. And as most of the available lots have been sold, there are many lurking dogs and horse-unfriendly sights along these bridle paths. (Don't let me get started on the story about Lucy and the headless target deer.) I can't say it's my favorite place to go trail riding, which is really too bad. But it's there, if we ever break down and get a couple of nice QHs. In the meantime, we have a jumping ring that's permanent and a dressage ring that's temporary (and small). We have a two-horse barn with a tackroom and woodshop. If I had that to do over, it would all be different as nothing but the stalls are the right size.

Our community is laid out so that pasture fence lines have bridle paths between them, so I don't have to worry about my horses sniffing the noses of the horses behind us. I think that's good planning. Lucy and Buddy can see their neighbors, but they can't get into trouble or pass along germs.

The things I remember from my research for the article were that issues for horse communities include fly control, manure disposal, infectious diseases and worming. I have not found these to be issues. Because nobody is paying to board their horses, they hang onto them well into the golden years. We have some ancient horses around here, and because these horses are members of the family, people take care of them.

It's great to live where your neighbors are also horse people. We sometimes split the cost of farm calls and loads of hay. Some neighbors split feeding duty when they go on vacation.

And this might sound strange, but one of the things I love the most is looking at their horses. Especially the babies.

One of our neighbors has too many babies this year and is going to let Lily and me help halter train a very friendly filly.

I love the view from my office, where I can see Buddy and Lucy when they're in the upper half of the pasture (this is a small pasture but you can still hide in it).

The pros are that it makes having horses more affordable and in some ways more wonderful, because you can enjoy your horses even when you're not riding them. I would highly recommend it. But here are the cons:

• It's freezing rain, the power is out and your pump doesn't work. Guess who's feeding tonight? You. Where are you going to get water with no pump?
• Guess who just broke another fence rail scratching her itchy rump. (Lucy.) This place is starting to look really shabby. Guess who gets to fix it. (Lucy is also tearing up the plastic corner feeders. Why? Ask her.)
• You put up a hot wire to keep boards from getting broken from itchy rumps. Lightning has taken out THREE fence chargers. And now somebody has broken the wire for that, too.
• The ring fencing is older wood that was treated with something that tastes divine (apparently) when it gets wet. Guess who has eaten it with all the enthusiasm of beavers. (Cayenne spray works, but it washes off.)
• Guess who gets to clean the stalls. (And why are they using the stalls for anything other than eating? We leave the doors open, so of course Lucy goes in to do her business when she wants privacy. Especially to urinate. I have sand floors covered with pine shavings, and her stall is about a foot lower than Buddy's now from me excavating down to the dry parts.)
• Because most of the horse owners here are adults, there are no kids for Lily to ride with. I trailer her to a nearby farm for lessons and social time.

In reality, it is more than I can keep up with. My mother-in-law points this out to me all the time. "Don't you wish that you lived somewhere else so that you could keep up with it all?" she asked.

"If I lived somewhere else, I wouldn't be thinking about how impossible it would be to keep up with it all. I'd be thinking about how nice it would be to live here," I answered. "So I may as well live here."

Other oddities about where I live:

• The owner of a local Mexican restaurant recently built a palace here. He's got a full-sized soccer field, complete with stadium lights, in his back yard. The Mexican restaurants have soccer teams and they play each other. I think this is cool, because I live several blocks over.
• The mother of a famous movie star used to live here until she had to move into town because of her age.
• Another neighbor won the Pillsbury Million-Dollar recipe contest. When her children came to my door selling popcorn for their school, I asked about it. One boy answered, "Yeah. She won it. But she can't win it again." (Don't we all quickly grow accustomed to what we have and need more?)
• We have non-horsey neighbors from Cuba, Lebanon, Turkey and Mexico.
• There are two military air bases within flying range. After they got used to the low-flying F-16s, they no longer worry about loud trucks or other equipment. (And those F-16s are so cool to watch.)
• Nobody has granite countertops in their tackrooms.

Horse Pr0n (This is a Joke!)

Internets, have you ever wandered over to some "horses for sale" site and not been able to stop looking at the horses? You just keep clicking and the pictures keep coming up and you keep drooling and you keep clicking and pretty soon you're embarrassed that your family might find out that there's no supper tonight because you've been looking at horse pr0n? Or maybe it's way past bedtime and you're still clicking and the pictures are still coming and you don't need a horse but look at that one, he looks like the finest thing you've ever seen....

And the next day you call the trainer and you talk with her and you think, "This is kind of nuts. That horse is still racing and you can't go try him out before you buy because the tickets to fly up there and back will be more than the horse...." But then the other part of you thinks, "But anybody that beautiful who looks so much like (INSERT NAME OF WHATEVER HORSE YOU MEASURE ALL OTHER HORSES BY) just has to be awesome." And so you get them to e-mail you some more photos and you mention to your husband that you are thinking of buying a horse that's still racing but awfully slow. And your husband rolls his eyes and puts more insurance on you and you keep scheming.... (This is when you are legitimately looking for another horse -- we have a husband-imposed horse quota here and we are at it.)

You find out what it would take to ship the horse to you. You call the shippers and you get the prices and you find out about the layover barn in Kentucky and this is getting really, really serious....

And the price on this gorgeous young man is really good and he's a good fellow, you're assured, everybody's favorite, just way too slow though no horse ever tried to run harder, and the trainer's kid rides him bareback around the barn even though the trainer's kid has no arms and doesn't know how to ride AND IF YOU DON'T BUY HIM HE'S GOING TO A SALE BARN AND LIFE WILL BE OVER FOR HIM and he looks just like the horse you measure all horses by so he must be awesome and your heart yearns and yearns and your wallet is running the other way and your vet tells you you are crazy.

And the trainer tells you that just last week a group of ladies from Colorado picked out a whole shipment of slow horses off of the website and hired a tractor trailer to pick them up. When they receive the shipment, that's when the ladies will decide which horse is whose.

(To be a fly on the wall! This could not end happily, could it?)

And then you find out there's a slow unraced horse an hour away from where you live that you can actually see, touch and ride.

You let the swashbuckling pirate dark handsome still racing horse go with all the grief of giving up a dream lover, and tell the trainer that somehow this feels a little bit risky.... And you never see or hear a thing about the horse that looked exactly like the horse by which you compare all other horses even though you search by the name all over the Internet and he is gone and it is your fault wherever he is he is gone for good and you missed him.... And you always wonder and somehow feel responsible.

And then, even though you have no reason to look at horses because you have two perfectly wonderful ones sitting out in the yard, eating, yes eating always eating, you still wander back and look at the horse p0rn (and hope that you don't attract perverts to your blog by the use of this word, but that's about what it is....)

Here's where I go when nobody's watching:

Canter Michigan (horses for sale by trainers)

Canter Ohio (Canter owned horses)

Canter Illinois (horses for sale by trainers)

Canter home page

This is a good organization, so feel free to donate while you're there. (I am in no way affiliated other than as a horse ogler and almost purchaser.)

Large round hay bale equals large round problem

I've already whined about the hay shortage. So you won't have to hear me whine all winter, I'm stocking up now on some decent Coastal Bermuda, which is what we grow around here.

Unfortunately, I don't really have room to store it all. Especially since, in my desperation last winter, I bought a large round bale of hay.

Now you may do just fine with large bales of hay. The one time I put one out for my horses, (and it was beautiful, fresh hay), Lucy couldn't stop eating. She ate until she had to lie down. She even groaned. The Big Turkey had all the symptoms of Too Much Thanksgiving Dinner Consumption, which in horse translates into: COLIC!

The vet came out, etc. Caught it early. Lucy lived to overeat another day.

Since I couldn't very well move the big bale of hay, I had to limit Lucy's time out with it.

Buddy was okay until the very end. Then, when they were eating the dregs, that's when he colicked. The vet came out, etc. Caught it early. Buddy lived to colic another day.

Last winter all I could get at one point was a $50 plus delivery bale of mediocre Coastal Bermuda. All I could get. So I had it delivered and put it in the back of the hay garage, with the idea that I would feed it in daily portions rather than leave the whole thing out.

A few days later Lucy greeted me at the gate. She had moldy breath. Uh oh. Breath that smelled like moldy hay. Uh oh. About this same time I found some $12/bale orchard grass, so that was the end of the round bale.

But it wasn't. It's still sitting there. It weighs 800 lbs. I cannot move it. It will not roll. It sits, slumped in the corner, occupying space where I could store good hay for the coming winter.

I advertised it for free on Craig's list, and had a taker who wanted to feed it to his goats. His truck broke down on the way and he never re-scheduled.

A neighbor said he'd like it for mulch, but just had surgery and can't use it. Another neighbor may want it but I'm not hopeful.

So, my husband, Pyro Paul, wants to drag it out using a chain and Ben, and burn it this weekend. Great. It's in the high 90s and we're going to start a fire in a drought.

Anybody want a free 800 lb. bale of hay? All you have to do is come get it. PLEASE!

Bargains on e-bay.

In my quest to be able to feed my horses and myself, I have often resorted to buying and selling things on e-bay to save -- or make -- a buck here or there. Actually, that's not making a buck. That's selling something that is too small or no longer useful to at least get some salvage value out of it.

My local tack store tells me that they have horror stories from people who come in with saddles and other tack they have bought on e-bay. (They probably also have "horror" stories about people who saved hundreds by buying on e-bay instead of from them.) So, since I've mostly been lucky, here's what I've learned.

1. Tall Boots: Don't buy tall boots on e-bay. You can buy jodhpur boots, but not tall boots. You need to try boots on.  I bought some gorgeous NIB $450 Ariat dressage boots for around $200. The previous owner had bought them on e-bay and said they didn't fit her right. All my leg measurements matched the boots. Well, I hated them, too, and thought maybe I needed to have the top re-shaped, so I went to the local tack store, where their expert fitter (he really is) told me that the boots fit just right. They might have, but I felt like I was wearing steel boots or armor. I kept them under the bed for two years and sold them on e-bay last fall for close to $300. I never would have bought those boots if I had tried them on first. By the way, the new owner loves them, so all is well. They've been sold on e-bay at least twice that I know if. Wonder how many times in all?

2. Saddles: You can buy cheap saddles if you are all right with cheap saddles. We bought a brand new child's saddle with a bridle and all fittings for a very good price. Too good. The saddle was supposed to be all leather, and the seller insisted that it was, but the parts that were clearly leather were made from lowly stiff, thick-hided beast leather (I doubt I've ever even heard of what kind of animal it was) that I'll have to say wore well, if not elegantly. It smelled funny. The knee rolls and seat were covered in something that seemed to be fabric based leatherette. Still, my daughter said it was comfortable and it wore well until she outgrew it. It looked okay if you didn't look closely. And I didn't worry about what kind of care it was getting -- or was not getting. It turned out to be a good purchase and, of course, when we no longer needed it, I sold it on e-bay (without the fittings) for about what we paid for it to a man who gave it great ratings and said it was a fabulous deal. Happy ending number Two.

3. Apparel: Buy brands you are familiar with. There are some funky riding clothes out there. Your best bets are NWT items that some sellers seem to find at closeouts or through other connections. I've found a great Kerrits supplier, but even at e-bay prices, they are not cheap. For schooling tights or breeches, I'll buy stained and used (and sell stained and used), but after the third or fourth child the elastic starts to go.... Still, how long is your growing child going to need it?

4. Used Tack: I haven't bought much used tack, but what I have bought has been a whole lot more used than it was represented to be. Sometimes the leather is cracked and it doesn't show in the photos -- and the buyer doesn't mention it. Very disappointing. I recently bought a martingale that made the laundry room stink of mouldy leather. I think it would have been a much better choice to buy a known, cheap brand at State Line or Country Supply. Bits and stirrups are probably all right, but I never find what I need when I need it.

5. Crops and Whips: Oh, dear reader! Do you know what company you keep? I kept losing in auctions for crops and couldn't figure out what the problem was. Just how many people need a set of five different colored crops? Lots. Go check out the winners of these auctions to see what other things they buy. They are not horse people but kinky people. That's all I'll say.

I eventually won. The crops were not as I expected. I think they were made out of fiberglass like in fishing poles. I'm not sure they would be legal in a show. Still, they're okay for home use, the colors make them easy to find, and if anybody gets out of line, well, their kindred have been used for worse.

6. Horse Clothing: Best luck was buying nearly new brand-name items from other horse people. Worst luck was buying unheard-of-name brands from big discount suppliers. When the order isn't right, they won't make it right until you get really, really ugly about it. Got a decent "custom made" sleezy from an individual, but it will always smell like smoke....

You can get great stuff on e-bay. Just read between the lines, ask if it is too good to be true, and ask questions. Oh! And really examine the photos. If one part of an item isn't pictured (say, the underside or the other side), there's probably a reason....

Good luck!