Buying Your First Horse: A Comprehensive Guide to Preparing For, Finding and Purchasing a Great Horse (Paperback)

by Mary Guay (Author), Donna Schlinkert (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Each year, thousands of horse lovers buy horses with less preparation and information than they would have if buying a car. The result can be a horse that is unhealthy, unsafe, poorly trained, or a poor value. This experience with a first horse can not only ruin an aspiring rider's dreams, but also result in a potentially dangerous situation. Written for English and Western riders, section one of Buying Your First Horse: A Comprehensive Guide to Preparing for, Finding and Purchasing a Great Horse prepares you for horse ownership by discussing safety, expenses, leasing, boarding at home and boarding at a barn. Section two covers finding good horses for sale, evaluating each horse and dealing with the seller. This practical guide helps the first time horse buyer become a horse owner with eyes wide open, and to select a horse that is safe, sound, a good buy and a great ride. Buying Your First Horse includes over 40 photographs, glossary, contracts for bill of sale, liability, boarding, and leasing, lists of equestrian associations and journals, and extensive questionnaires for evaluating horses and boarding facilities. The authors, Mary Guay and Donna Schlinkert are sisters who grew up with a love for horses. Mary is a writer in Atlanta, GA and Donna is a lifelong professional equestrian with over 20 years of international experience as a broker, trainer, instructor, barn owner and manager who currently owns a successful hunter jumper barn in Dallas, GA. Buying Your First Horse is essential information, especially for the general reader with no previous experience with horses, and for anyone else contemplating having their own horse, either pastured on their own property or house in a professional stable. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Description
This practical guide is a must for every Western or English rider and buyer of a first horse. Section one prepares you for the issues related to horse ownership including safety, expenses and boarding decisions. In section two you learn how to find a horse that is safe, sound, healthy, a good match for the rider, a good buy and a great ride. Includes glossary, index, questionnaires for evaluating horses and boarding facilities, and sample contracts for boarding, leasing, bill of sale and liability.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: White Papers Press (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965466965
• ISBN-13: 978-0965466967
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,048,301 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on the topic for novice horse people., June 23, 1999

By	G. Slusher (Eugene, Oregon) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been teaching riding and horsemanship for about 23 years and have often felt the need for just this book for my novice students and the hundreds of Pony Clubbers I've taught (and their parents!). No other book that I've found (and I own over 900 horse books) comes even close to the helpfulness and usefulness of Guay's book.

The author leads you through a series of decisions based upon _your_ situation, skills/experience, finances, and goals. Unlike most "how-to-buy-a-horse" books, this book doesn't go much into details about conformation, breeds, bloodlines, etc., as those are pretty much irrelevant for first-time horse owners. Instead, Guay takes the reader through the process of deciding, first, whether one should buy, lease, or just take lessons--including the financial and responsibility issues. If the decision is to buy a horse, she focuses on what is most important: finding an individual horse whose disposition and training make it suitable for that particular rider. She also strongly recommends getting help from an experienced horse person, preferably one's instructor.

This book is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to horse ownership. It is aimed at novices, not experienced horse people. For example, the author often covers what to experienced horse people may seem to be simple common sense, but which all too often can get novices into serious trouble. Guay emphasizes safety above all, both in selecting the horse and in riding and working with the horse.

Even though the book is aimed at novices, it should also be in every instructor's or trainer's library. We may forget what it's like to be a novice and looking for our first horse. Guay's book can help us understand and see things from the perspective of our students, and help them find a good horse for THEM, rather than what WE might buy.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too basic to be helpful, October 27, 2000

By A Customer

If you need advice like "if you've never ridden before, be sure to take a few riding lessons before deciding whether to purchase a horse" (yes, the authors actually thought it necessary to tell their readers this), then this book may help you out. But if you are looking for tips on evaluating conformation, soundess, suitability, etc. then look elsewhere. Lacking a trainer who could travel to evaluate horses with me, I was hoping to find a "pocket guide" to the issues that are beyond the ken of the average rider who has never owned a horse. I was disappointed to find this book addressed more to the average person who has never ridden. There was almost no information on figuring out whether a given horse is a good match.

This book may be best used to convince your horse-crazy offspring that there's more to the undertaking than feeding carrots to a pony . . . but anyone who's seriously contemplating horse-ownership should get far more information before making this important commitment.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Book for buying first horse!, March 20, 1999

By A Customer

The book was very easy to read and gives good advice on expenes, boarding, leasing. Any first time buyer should read this book. As much as I would like to buy a horse now, I learned that I am better off leasing a horse until I can find more time. Leasing has been a wonderful way to go and I still get to enjoy being around horses.