I’ve been looking for a Mustang for a little bit now it will be my trail horse, and we will do some trail obstacles. I had thought about doing endurance, however it’s not as popular in the NE and I’m not sure I’d really have the time, so if it works out great, but if it doesn’t oh well.

I found this lovely gelding in Iowa, working on a ranch. Got sent lots of videos, and he looks awesome except he’s a tiny bit off in one of his hind legs. He trotted out of it. I googled the owners, all good reviews, on the phone seem like salt of the earth people. They’re clearly not hiding things from the video as the trotted him on concrete and they could have cut the first pass out and he would have looked 100%.

Friends connected me with a cowboy who is hauling horses through there this weekend. He was going to try and him and haul him for me if he liked him. This guy is a proper cowboy, know how those ranches work, horses are trained, etc. unlike me this is his world.

When discussing the video with him, he agrees the horse is slightly off. I asked if we should abort, he replied that if I want to, he’s fine with that but he would still go and see the horse as he thinks I found a really nice one and he would pick him up as a sales horse. He said he would have even bought him sight unseen from those videos alone. Discussing further he shared that mustangs from this area are tough as they come, on these ranches they work hard and a bit of soreness happens, either from a kick, a stone bruise, poor or heavy shoes, etc. He has very little concern that we will have this horse 100% in no time and while he says he doesn’t think he will have any limitations he did point out that I’m not putting the horse in a demanding career. He said worse case scenario a therapeutic riding school would love him as he’s so broke and he wouldn’t have to be much more than pasture sound for that job. Before we saw these videos, I told the guy I would pay him to haul regardless if we get the horse, that way there was no financial incentive for him to say get the horse.

I know a lot of you will recommend a PPE - I did ask about that. He said you have two options - the rural vet who knows these ranches and these horses who will likely shoot an x-ray, touch the leg and say - it’ll be fine. Or you can ship to Ames, get ultrasound and the more usual PPE. It’ll cost as much as the horse and you’ll be the talk of the bars in rural Iowa for PPEing a Mustang whose job is to do occasional trail rides.

So right now I think I’m going to buy the horse - The guy who is helping me comes with great references, knows these horses, knows the ranches and isn’t concerned. He has no financial incentive to recommend I buy or don’t buy the horse as he gets paid either way. It seems like there is a solid plan B if it doesn’t work out and worse case scenario, I own my own farm, grow my own hay, and financially well off to the point that if he doesn’t fulfill the mission, I won’t loose sleep over it.