Some of you may remember that at the start of the semester, I started leasing a horse. Well, his lease is now up and he has to go home, meaning I'll be horseless again, unless I buy the horse of one of the girls on the team. It seems like it might be good for me, but I can't tell for sure. He's eight, an Appaloosa, built tough and stout, and has really good bloodlines (Zippo Pine Bar). His personality is ADORABLE, and he'll tolerate anything. And he's only $2000.

But he has a problem with his legs--namely, they're crooked. Not horribly, so that he looks deformed, but because they're crooked, they don't distribute pressure on his hoofs like they should. He needs corrective shoeing or to go shoeless, in which case his owner says his hoofs correct themselves. If he's not shoed correctly, he'll go lame; not extremely lame, but still lame.

He's also stubborn (see "Appaloosa" mentioned above :-P) and steers like a boat because of it. I really don't mind the steering because if I can ride a pattern steering a boat, I can ride it steering a reiner, so to speak. But I feel like he doesn't respond to my hand the way he should. He tosses his head sometimes, and it seems to take a lot to bump his head down. One coach says it's just him and I just haven't learned his "feel" yet; the other says he isn't totally broke. I don't think he's green, I mean, they use him for beginners' lessons. But he's not exactly fine-tuned, I think--maybe I could work on that. Maybe I could learn a lot from it.

It doesn't help that one coach says he's a good horse and would do well for me, reassuring me that with softer ground (our arena is like a rock, it's so compacted; and it's known that several of our horses are lame or have quarter cracks because of it) and easier riding (the kind I'd be doing), he'd be perfectly healthy and sound. The other coach says he has lameness issues and wouldn't take him for free. I really trust the first coach--she's taught me everything I know about horses and is a friend. The second coach's horses are like $45,000 horses, and I think she looks at them from that show standard. She thinks the horse's owner is between a rock and a hard place, needing to sell her horse. The horse's owner has told me she doesn't want to push him on me and has someone else who will buy him, she just thinks he'd be a good horse for me and have a really good home with me.

I think all of them are biased a little bit in their relative directions, but I don't know which middle view to take. Good horse but may not stay sound? Sound horse but may be too much for me to handle? Too much horse that may not stay sound?

I don't know. I have to make a decision by Friday--yes, day after tomorrow--because the owner's parents are coming to pick up her other horse, and they have to pick Rascal up at the same time if I don't want him. No trial period. If I buy him and it doesn't work out, that's tough. He's the best prospect I've looked at so far, part of me thinks. The other part of me thinks I want him to be the right horse so badly (I've been looking for over a year) that I'm biased myself.

Pray for me, please. This is a huge decision that could possibly affect the next twenty years of my life.

La"I'm so frustrated with going back and forth I could cry"Zorra