You would think selling a saddle would be pretty straight forward. I can sell anything else, non horse related, without getting the crazies I get selling anything remotely to do with equines.

16″ western saddle for sale.

Old handmade roping saddle, has seen a lot of use. Still in very useable shape, well oiled and broke in. Has minor scuffs all over saddle and dally marks on horn, nothing major. Saddle over all sound. Semi QH bars. Medium oil with basketweave tooling. Very deep slick seat. All leather ties newly replaced. All rigging has been checked and oiled, fenders are solid, stirrups are rawhide wrapped oak. Solid sound rawhide wrapped hardwood tree. Weighs about 60 pounds. No trades. $275 call xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Now I think my ad is pretty complete. No confusion. (I am really stupid.) Just because I am sure this ad is full of information, pretty complete, answers many questions, doesn’t mean a bloody thing.

The following is a short list of some of the questions I received.

Is the seat adjustable?

Do you have an adult sized Saddle? My butt is a 42″ (I really like this one)

How do you remove the semi QH bars? I want to use it on my registered QH.

Will this fit a pony and my kids? (Kind of get a mental picture of saddled children)

If this is only 16″ isn’t it just a toy?

So this is only good for someone under 60 pounds!?

You can’t sell handmade saddles they are not safe, don’t you know that? (Cowboys and indians all over the West should have waited for factory saddles)

What kind of Horn is it made of? (WTH This one threw me for awhile)

Is this good for sex games? (Hmmmm, what?)

What happened to the seat to make it slick? Is the padding completely gone?

Ad says it is broke in, but doesn’t say where it is broken or if it can be fixed?

Do you still have the leather fenders? I don’t rope cows so don’t need solid fenders. (Mental pic of ’50’s Cadillac fenders on a saddle)

What are dally marks? (Marks on horn from catching the rope on horn to stop momentem of cows. This is a fair question, I only included it to add the following question.)

You spelled daily wrong. (Um nope)

How much would you sell if for without the rigging? I don’t rope. I just ride trails.

Will this fit my husband? (Does this follow the sex games question or ? I wonder if she a) wants to ride more comfortably on her husband’s  back or b) thinks I have intimate knowledge of her husband to know the size of his butt.

Has this saddle been used?

Will this fit other horses beside semi QH?

How tall a horse will this fit?

Will this fit my horse?

Will this fit a Cow?

Is it heavy?

I am just beginning to ride, Does it have a seatbelt? Or is that what the ties are for?

Is roping the brand name?

How old is this horse?

Has this horse been shown much?

What if my horse can’t put it on? (Now I am really confused.)

Can you ride in this Saddle? (I can, but not sure about you.)

Would it be lighter without the tree thing?

Do you have the title or papers for this?

Would you take $50? I don’t  think anyone will buy It is handmade, but I can’t be picky I need a saddle.

Is this good for dressage?

Is delivery or mailing included? (They are 1900 miles away. Mailing a 60 pound saddle with boxing heavy enough not to disinigrate under the stress would be prohibitive in price. And though I love road trips, nope.)

In the end, I donated it to the 4H.

Giving riding lessons to teenagers is a gateway drug to them. Soon they are wanting to go on a ‘real’ ride, out on the trail. Eventually you have to capitulate and load up the horses and go out to an over used local horse trail.
The day was sunny but not too warm. A perfect spring day to go on a trail ride. So of course every idiot, including me and 3 students, all descended with various levels of riding ability, to the tolt line trail. I had misgivings after watching one woman back her horse trailer half up on a bright red Mazda while her husband who was suppose to be directing her lit up his cigarette. He then stuffed the cigarette he had just lit back in his shirt pocket, ran for the truck, only to start howling as he was ripping off his cheap cowboy shirt that was sending up layers of colorful smoke. Later I found out it had melted to the copious hair on his chest acting like a cheap wax job.
We got the horses feet cleaned out and checked for cracks and lesions. Ran a quick brush over the already groomed horses to get rid of road dust from the short trip, then tacked up and ready to ride.
To the right of us a woman pulled out a grey rangy looking horse that was glaring around with a murderous light in its single eye. He had red and green ribbons both tied into his tail. Taking this a teaching opportunity, I pointed him out to my students and explained that a red ribbon meant the horse was a kicker, and the green ribbon meant he was inexperienced on the trail or spooked easily. I told them we would give that horse a wide berth.
Across from us was a very pretty tall black mare and an adorable sorrel pony with a flaxen mane and tail. The pony had a white ribbon in his tail. I pointed him out to my students explaining that the white ribbon meant the pony was for sale. I quickly grabbed a white ribbon out of the trailer and tied it on my bay geldings tail. Maybe I could get rid of Bush. He was pretty enough, but not terribly bright and had a trot like bricks falling off a truck.
We waited about 10 minutes after the grey was out of sight down the nearer trail and we headed down the opposite one. A young guy on a little Arab mare asked if he could join us as his mare had never been on this trail before. She was still green and he didn’t take her on new trails alone, and his friends had not shown up.
The first hour was very pleasant. The young man was quite a good rider, and my three teenaged girls were drooling over him or his pretty little Arab. Both oblivious to being so admired. We were all having a good time. I was turned around in my saddle talking to my students, telling them something about trail and bridge etiquette as there was a much used bridge coming up. All my horses would happily splash through the knee high creek and get a drink. So to let them do so so others could use the bridge.
I heard shouting behind us and the young man helped get the girls off the side of the trail in record time. Then with the shouting I heard hoof beats. Running ones. Bearing down on us was the black mare and the pony. The pony was tied off to the saddle horn of the black mare. On the pony was a terrified, white faced girl of about 6-7 years old. No one was on the black.
I was young and stupid back then. I was also much more athletic. The gelding I was on was pretty green, useless for much of anything except walk trot on a trail, and lazier and dumber than a 4 yr old quarter horse had any right to be. I tried to move his fat butt in line to stop the black mare. She was not impressed and raked her teeth down his neck, scaring the stupid beast into backing into the rope securing the pony. He then leaped forward. Somehow I made the decision to jump onto the black mare to get her under control.
Somehow, amazingly I made it into the blacks saddle. She spun impressively on her haunches, leaping into the middle of the creek, dragging the poor pony with her. It was then I realized the mare had no bridle or halter of any kind on. Oh shit.
The mare was running down the trail and I was wondering what I was doing on a run away mare I didn’t own.
All thoughts right now were for the girl on the pony. I tried to work on the knot, but realized immediately that I was never going to get that knot undone under these conditions. I dug out my pocket knife and went to work. Catching every third branch in the face as I cut at the rope. After stabbing myself in the hand quite severely, I managed to get the rope cut.
The mare freed of her anchor, puts on speed. She was frothing by this time. I am trying to use my weight to slow her and also looking for a good place to dive off. Mainly I am hoping she is going to get tired and slow down and not collapse.
We are in an open area now. Ahead of us I see the rangy grey horse with the Christmas colored tail ribbons. What else does this day have in store for me? He also has no rider. He is looking at me with a surprised expression and a mouthful of grass.
The demon mare heads straight for him. I am wondering if she stops to take him on if I can get off and get out of this mess without injury. Or if they had this planned and she has brought me out here for the 2 of them to sacrifice to their evil god.
The grey leaps forward intercepting demon spawn (as I have not so fondly begun thinking of her), and checks her with his chest and shoulder. I am preparing to leap, but with the sudden lack of forward momentum of the mare I fly off over the grey landing better than I could of hoped, but directly behind that festively bedecked tail. I have the wind knocked out of me, so I weakly roll a couple of times hoping to get out of dangers reach. I lose a couple of minutes. Next thing I am really aware of is the young guy on the little Arab cantering up and the grey screaming. I find he is literally standing over me, in a protective stance. Now he is challenging the little Arab mare.
I drag myself to a sitting position and this one eyed grey is nuzzling me and ‘talking’ to me like a mare encouraging a new foal.
I finally wave off the nice young man and grabbing a hold of greys hackamore. I get to my feet. I pet and scratch the grey, check his cinch and bridle out, make sure he is not injured and with help from from my new friend mount him. I am in the saddle when I realize Demon spawn is gone. As we are riding back to my students, Bradly, my new friends name, tells me that when the mare leapt into the creek it divested the pony of its young rider. She landed in the creek, without a scratch but soaking wet. I had no idea she wasn’t still aboard. The pony came running right back to his little mistress. Her mother came running up and was with the group of girls and her daughter while Bradly came looking for me. No sign of Demon spawn.
We got back to our little group. It took some time. I didn’t realize how much ground we had covered. The grey was a very responsive beast! He was trained to a treat! He also had lovely gaits, and seemed to flow from one to the other.
There were about 15 other horses and riders and unmounted people around our little group. The grey’s owner was there, also the owner of Demon spawn, whose real name I was to find was Regal Midnight. I think my name fit her better. Also the couple who had tried to park on the Mazda’s hood.
I tried to give the grey back to her owner, but she was having non of it. She finally mounted Bush, my block headed gelding. Along our ride back to the trailers I got the whole story. The woman who owned the grey gelding had bought him only a week or two before. He was suppose to be a great horse, but was missing an eye. So she had gotten a good deal on him. Her friend told her that she should put the ribbons in his tail because since he couldn’t see well, he would spook at horses coming up behind him. (He never did.) She had tied him up to visit with some people she knew, and when she looked around he was gone. She didn’t like riding him because he had ‘too much go’. I figured that probably had to do with her tendency to grip with her legs too much whenever she got nervous. Not that Bush cared. To get him into anything over a walk or slow trot you had to have spurs, the other horses leaving him behind, or be calling him to grain.
The black mares owner had also recently purchased her mare. She had ridden her once before, in a covered arena the day she bought her. She was an ex race horse. As soon as she mounted and tied the pony to her saddle, the mare freaked out. Bucked her off and took off, bent for returning to hell. Probably never ponied another horse in her life. She had decided they were keeping the pony, selling the black.
When I got to the truck, I caught a look at myself in the mirror. I was pretty scary looking. I had a black eye, with a cut over it that had covered my face in blood. Red weals and welts from the branches that had whipped my face. I was missing a chunk of hair. I was filthy, and had random bits of grass, leaves and whatsit in my hair.
So at the end of the day, I got home with some money and 2 horses I didn’t leave home with and missing one I had left with. I had gladly traded Bush for the one eyed gelding I decided to call pirate Jack. Jack was a registered QH 5 yr old gelding, who had lost his eye when only 3 days old. It didn’t bother him a bit. I won quite a few trail completions and even some endurance rides with him. He filled out really well with good food and regular riding. He was also a great lesson horse, and a total sweetheart once he got to know someone.
I also had Demon Spawn. She was there for training. Also because I was able to catch her. She ended up being a lot better with a bridle on. I retrained her for dressage and she sold to a nice man who did very well with her.
The students went back to lessons, real trail rides were not the adventure they had dreamed of I guess.

Make sure you have someone around to video tape the encounter with people who answer craigslist ads for horses. Without this valuable evidence, no one will ever believe you when you tell them about it.

If any of your potential buyers makes reference to just having seen any horse movie, ie; Black Beauty, Seabiscuit, National Velvet, or any other, tell them you have sold all your horses or have the plague. This is the buyer who knows nothing about horses other than the 3 times they rode on their Grandpa’s farm when four years old, and just remembered horses when they saw the latest movie. Beware, the have the potential to make you pull out your hair while they compare every one of your horses to the movie horse or Grandpa’s plow horse. None of your horses can measure up to their imagined ideal.

I have been known to sell a horse from time to time. But I don’t make money on the deal. Just doesn’t happen. But I was accused today of “flipping horses to make a buck.” “She gets free horses and then turns around and sells them.” That’s not exactly how it works.

Generally I will get a phone call that so and so has a horse that has not been ridden in 4 years, if ever. Or there is this horse they picked up that is under weight, can’t be caught, bites, kicks, is maybe pregnant, is probably still a stallion, has never had its feet done or a halter on it, is so spoiled it runs people over to get fed, whatever. Somehow these people get MY phone number and they have been “told” that I will take this miserable excuse of a horse. No one ever admits a name of who gave them my name and number. I think there is a secret listing somewhere for horse sucker.

If you know anything about horses, you know you never make any money on a “free” horse. The most expensive horse I have ever owned was a free horse. A free horse is usually in desperate need of farrier care, and it is never a single trim, and oh look how nice their feet are, visit. This is an every 4 week, For several months, major over haul on a horse that objects, strenuously. He has never had his feet done before, and doesn’t care if he can walk. Hey, just throw that hay closer, or better yet get me a round bale and a bag of grain.

They also have never had their teeth floated. It then takes the whole bottle of happy horse injectable and 4 large men and power tools to get this horse having teeth that would not look like something a shark would be proud to own.

Next we get to deal with weight issues. Most free horses are very underweight. Usually with rain rot or even, shudder, lice. So I get to pour food down them, after their teeth are floated, by the bag and bale-ful. Dewormer is next on the list, along with supplements that cost as much as some people (like me) make in a week. Every once in a while, someone will have a 9 year old unbroken, overweight, spoiled, pushy, (but he is registered!) gelding that is ready to founder. Those are the funny ones. They cannot understand why they can’t sell their fat obnoxious, dangerous untrained gelding. “But he is registered!” (But don’t get to close, he will bite you ‘but he is only looking for treats’).

So I get to pour feed, training, time, and of course love, into this horse for the next 2 to 9 months, then I may find him or her the perfect home. I sell these ‘free’ horses for $300 to as much as $1000 depending on the horse. How much is full care board and training? I don’t make any money on these horses. No one could. Most horses I end up with are ones who would likely go to the meat man. A few, I admit to having bought off the meat truck because I thought there was hope of them becoming more than dog food with a little time and effort.

I had a friend get in touch with me last night. She has an Appy gelding that hasn’t been rode in 3-5 years. He is a little underweight. Maybe needs his teeth done and a retrain. Wants to know if I will take him, see if you can get him rideable. Sure I say. I like Appies. Yup, sucker, that’s me.

I guess I am a horse trader, horse flipper, whatever. (Call me what you want, just don’t call me with your 3 legged one eyed, underweight horse, cuz knowing me I would try an fix him). If that is what I am, they wear old boots, drive an older truck, and generally have broken nails and nicks on their hands from fixing fence on the cheap. Cause there is no money in it!

So I am called up one day and asked if I can come ride a friend’s new horse. She tells me she bought this gelding at the Hermiston sale. He is a registered Quarter horse, and she saw him ridden through the ring. He had been quiet and had impressed her with his composure at the sale, which is loud and has the smell of fear and illness. She brought him home and let him settle in a few days and when she went to saddle him up to ride he was acting “weird” so she wanted me to come check him out.
These kind of calls are the kind I get that make me want to say things like, sorry, I have to go to Tunisia for work and wont be available for the next 2 months. But no, my curiosity is up. I seem to always forget what happened to that damn cat.
I get to Lacey’s house and see a rather pretty Buckskin stallion in her smaller arena. After moving to this place after her Father died, she decided to board horses. She had 24 acres of nice pastures. All separated into 1.5 acre areas, with a half dozen 1/4 acre runs.
I go up and check the buckskin over. He seems very well mannered, and accepts a treat I toss into the arena for him. I give him another scratch and go knock on the door. Lacey and I exchange pleasantries and then I ask her about the gelding she bought. She tells me about watching him be ridden through the sale, how he ignored all the noise and other horses. He was really quiet and hardly even moved around, except when urged to do so. He mostly stood very quietly while they un-tacked him and then jumped back on him bareback. She decided he was the kind of horse she needed as she had been out of horses for several years and was basically starting over. She still had her old mare, but she was arthritic and was just a pet for the kids to occasionally be led around on.
When she had went out the day before to try to ride him, he had been much more animated, had not been very willing to stand still to be saddled, and hopped around so much when she was trying to mount she had become intimidated and had called me. While unsaddling him he had even pulled off the saddle pad himself and had flapped it around before tossing it aside.
I told her to show me the horse. She leads me out to the Buckskin Stallion. I turn and explain that she either brought the wrong horse home, or she did not understand the sale information on the horse, as this is a stallion. She told me he cant be a stallion because he was in with her mare and didn’t try to “do anything” except talk to her, like any new horse. And she was sure the guy selling him had said he was a gelding.
The buckskin as if to prove a point, starts strutting around ‘proudly’ proving his ability to be as manly as any other stallion, while parts of him are at attention. Where as Lacey’s eyes become the size of dinner plates and she makes no, no, no, noises shaking her head rapidly in denial.
“But he was so nice and quiet when he was in the sale yard. He was even quiet and nice when I went and pulled him from the pasture.”
She says he had been turned out with the mares in the main pasture for 2 days when he first came home; the boarders’ mares. Seems like she was going to have to explain the birds and the bees to those who had mares out in the common pasture. I am trying not to chuckle.

I sigh hiding my grin, and tell her the horse was probably drugged at the sale, and when she pulled him out of the pasture, he was probably tired from 2 days with a herd of mares. I will do an evaluation and we will see what he does know, and what kind of training he has, and what he may need.
Buffalo Joe, his registered name, is easily caught. Especially by me the one who had thrown him nummies, and had known the right place to scratch.
He has had some handling, and knows I mean business. He is really smart and keeps his attention on me the whole time. I am a bit impressed, but I also know there must have been a reason they drugged Joe.
I get out her saddle, and immediately set it aside and go grab one out of my truck. For one thing, he needed a saddle with full quarter horse bars as he was much wider than her old mare. For another thing, My ass was not going to fit into a 14″ barrel saddle with room to wiggle or bail fast if I needed to if he decided to be an ass.
He stands still and I get him saddled easily enough. He does not stand as still as a finished well behaved horse, but he is supposedly 4 and may not have had all the ground work he should have. I walk him a bit, do some ground driving and he knows a bit. He even lunges both ways and is giving to me and getting into the work. He has had some training and is enjoying this. Maybe he was only drugged so he would not get too wound up at the sale? Warning bells should have went off in my head, but instead I was relaxing.
I decide I am going to get up on him. By now several boarders have shown up, as well as a curious neighbor. They are all pulling up lawn chairs and chatting, watching “the expert” evaluate this horse. So I have an audience of about 9 people and Lacey.
I grab a cinder block, as I have an artificial left knee, and Joe is about 16hh. I grab the reins and a hunk of mane and swing a leg over Joe. I had almost got into the saddle when it came up to meet me. Hard. I managed to keep the reins and a big handful of mane I had ripped out. The tearing of the mane was an extra power source that made access to his auxiliary batteries, like those toys or flashlight you buy that has the plastic thing between the batteries and the main switch. Or as my daughter said, a rip cord, only I had no parachute.
He didn’t buck. There is no word for what this horse did to my ass. He jumped sideways, he did things cartoon horses do . I remember a cartoon movie when I was a kid about a cowboy raised by coyotes or wolves who meets a girl and she decides to ride his horse on their wedding day and the horse bucks her to the moon, It occurs to me I may be visiting her very soon.
He slips and goes down, I feel my foot hit the ground and the stirrup and the horse’s weight twist my ankle, I feel something pop. Now I am mad and determined that I am going to win this battle. I am not a fancy rider most of the time. I have to concentrate to be a pretty rider, but I have been on a horse since before I could walk and not much can buck me off once I set my mind to staying put. Also there is the audience. I try not to let that influence me, but it does.
Joe sunfishes, and I stay on, he rears then bucks, I stay on. He is covered in sweat and so am I. He races around the small arena and stops abruptly and throws down his head and bucks hard forward, planting his front legs with his head between them. I manage to stay on even though I am slammed in the back of the head by his ass and my neck feels dislocated. I kick him in the sides viciously, only then realizing I only have one boot still on. He is startled and takes a step forward. I hear “good boy” come out of my mouth, wondering about how I said that to this horse I wanted to strangle, then eat with BBQ sauce, after I get out of the hospital anyway.
His ears pricked up though. I said it again. “Good boy……Walk out.” The same command I gave him when ground driving him. He takes a few tentative steps. He looks at me, and I look at him. I pat him on the shoulder. I squeeze my leg a bit and say, “walk out boy.” We walk around the arena about 20 steps. I pat him on the shoulder making much over him, telling him what a good boy he is. I decide to get off and stop on a good note.
I step off and when my right foot hits the ground I scream and collapse to the ground, having forgotten about my broken ankle. I scare him and he starts jumping around stomping all over me. I woke up in the hospital and not the moon, which I guess is better than I saw this turning out. I still had some mane hairs wrapped up in my fingers of my left hand. I had 2 broken ribs, a broken ankle, a concussion and whiplash.
2 months later, I went out and got on Buffalo Joe again. No one else had any intention of getting on him, so when I was better I felt it was my job. He didn’t even try to buck with me again. A month after I finished his training Lacey sold Joe as a Stallion to a very nice woman from Montana who wanted a stallion to show and breed. Lacey was too afraid to try to ride him after seeing the events of my first ride on him.
There were 7 very cute foals at Lacey’s place next spring. Even her old Arthritic mare had a cute little Buckskin Colt. I did not offer to break him out when he was old enough.

I have not been feeling up to writing for a while, was sick for a time. Now I am feeling better and the words are starting to flow again.
I was feeling pretty good this morning, fed the horses, took my friend to work at a new job, dropped the boy off at school….Things were going great. Came home and cleaned the house. Cleaned the bathrooms, dusted, vacuumed. the works. Even washed the dog bed covers. Yes, I only have one dog, and yes, she has 2 beds. Sigh. I get all done and decide the house smells like dog. Um…. No, the dog smells like dog. Time to wash the dog. I decide I am going to be all prepared. I put on a bathing suit, mix the shampoo with water and put it and the rub a dub dub dog scrubber ( I kid you not, that is what it is called,) in the shower in preparation. I get out the old towels and get them all ready. We are set.

I then decide that brushing her to get rid of all the extra loose hair will make clean up easier. Sounds like a good idea, right? Worked 40 minutes and got off a good bit of hair. Now we are really ready!

My dog is a German Shepard and though well trained is spoiled rotten, and weighs a good 90 pounds or so. She doesn’t weigh as much as me, but she has 2 more legs for leverage and is pretty sure the bath is a really, really bad idea. I should have listened to her.

I finally get her into the shower stall and am getting myself in with her. I am getting worn out already. The opposite shower door is open a tiny crack, she gets her nose in there and flings it into me and bolts. I get a really nice bruise on my hip. Argh!

Again, I get the dog into the shower after using a zip tie to make sure the opposite door cannot be opened.

I Scrub and scrub poor Grey and am sure I was in a delusional state when I thought I was brushing off all the loose hair. Either that or the dog gets wet as a protective action it sheds all the wet hair. Handfuls and handfuls of wet dog hair. I am scooping it out of the drain and flinging it onto a pile on the seat in the shower. It will eventually fill up half a plastic grocery bag. Do German Shepard’s have that much hair? I took a whole grocery bag of hair off her earlier, but it was all dry and fluffy. Where did this all come from? She certainly doesn’t look to have lost any hair at all!

I am rinsing all the shampoo off and she decides to start shaking. More hair. All over the walls and shower doors. And me. I look like I have not shaved my legs since the Paleolithic. After getting her rinsed off and trying to get as much water out of her coat as possible, which has become 20 times thicker somehow, even after losing 30 pounds of hair, I let her out of the shower and try to towel her off. She is still shaking massive amounts of water and hair. Now it is covering the bathroom counters, doors, walls and cupboard doors.

I towel her off, using all 7 towels, all now soaking and covered with hair. I do not want to use my good towels on her so this is as good as it is gonna get. She seems drier. Not dry but dry enough when she shakes, there is only the sound of flapping jowls and ears and not the sound of a power washer spraying the walls.

I let her out of the bathroom so I can try to clean up the once pristine bathroom. I wipe off the counter and cupboards first so no water spots, then scrape all the hair form the shower. Then I take a shower again to remove the smell of dog and the hair. Then I clean the shower again. That makes 3 times today! I am exhausted. I finally get the bathroom clean and am thinking a nap sounds like a fine idea. It is only 10 am but I got up at 4am and I am telling myself I deserve a nap. I have worked hard and am wiped out.

Then I see the rest of the house I just cleaned and vacuumed this morning. I nearly fainted. Grey must have decided she was not nearly dry enough. She has rolled on every carpet, leaving a nice coating of hair, (More hair? Really?) all over the carpets. She also seemed to have walked back and forth along the couches covering the front of them as well. Those dog bed covers I had washed and used fabric softener on? Yep, you are right. She managed to cover those too.

Then I look out the kitchen window, and the 5 month old fillies have snuck out of the fence again and are helping themselves to a mid morning snack. I get them corralled and heave my tired butt back into the house.

I decided to sit down, have another cup of coffee instead of a nap. Then I write this down to share with you all, and soon, but not too soon, I will get up and clean the house again.

But the dog looks and smells great! Until I let her outside again anyways.

Moral to this story?

Hire a housekeeper, take the dog to the groomer and go get a mani-pedi or a stiff drink!