Horse Sold!

Chilly has been sold, and the check deposited successfully yesterday!

The sale was delayed, and took place last week while we were on vacation. Then, there was a hurricane. Carrie didn't get to drive out and meet with our broker until yesterday, and you can bet she deposited that sucker right away. We got half of what we were originally asking and the broker got to keep 15%, but it's a huge blessing to not have the financial burden of supporting the horse. God is good!

Carrie is bittersweet about the sale. To her, it's like losing a child. Chilly was her darling long before she met me. She bought him as a baby, and hand-raised/trained him to the point he's at today. On the other hand, Carrie's thrilled most of her paycheck isn't going down the drain for a change. She's also very comfortable with the mother-daughter team she sold Chilly to, which is extremely important after all of the horse drama that's happened since we were married. Before meeting our broker, Susan, Chilly was having a rough time of it.

First, he was with a novice rider who ended up starving him over the winter. Carrie was tormented for a while when she saw Chilly the next spring and he'd become emaciated.

Next, he was with a family friend of Carrie's who matched him with an inexperienced rider (Whom we'll call Bob). What we didn't know at the time was that Chilly has a condition called a 'kissing spine.' He may have been born with it, but the symptoms never really showed when Carrie rode him, because of her good technique. Bob rode Chilly wrong. Despite working with a trainer, he never progressed and Chilly began to develop back pain and require medical attention. Carrie noticed right away, but her family friend and Bob both thought she was being paranoid.

Finally, the barn Chilly was at after Carrie rescued him from situation #2 went out of business. The trainer was a friend of Carrie's and offered to bring him up north where she was moving to another barn. She would then train Chilly and act as a broker for us for a commission. Unfortunately, there were an unfortunate series of incidents in her life and she didn't work with Chilly for the next three months. Carrie had to make the uncomfortable decision to 'fire' her, and hire a professional broker to train Chilly so that he could be sold since he was too far away for Carrie to ride regularly AND she had sold her horse trailer assuming that Chilly would be sold fairly quickly.

Whew! Lots of drama. Even after we found Susan, there was still a monster vet bill from an infection, the kissing spine diagnosis, and five more months of trying to sell Chilly. If he hadn't sold by the end of August, Carrie had found a barn who was willing to accept him as a donation, so that we wouldn't have the financial drain.

Sure, we only got half of what we wanted for the horse, but Carrie tells me we're lucky that we were able to sell him at all once he got the kissing spine diagnosis. A full sale would've taken care of Shane's college fund, but we at least have a good start. Carrie will miss her boy, but she's going to be getting her horse fix by training her students. She's looking at taking a test to become a certified trainer in October (I think).

All's well that ends well.