Ok, so a few days before Christmas the horses were being idiots and I mentioned to Mum that they really weren't getting on at all. She paused and asked me "What would you do if I were to buy you a second horse?"

WHOA. Back up, say what? The last conversation we had about getting a second horse was literally twelve months ago. Where on earth did that come from?!?!

I muttered something about too much money, not enough time etc.

The next day I again mention the horses not getting on and perhaps we should find another person to either replace the current boarder or perhaps just have three horses if it means we have peace between the horses.

"Well...actually..."

Turns out my instructor knows of a horse she wants to find a home for. Her boss is involved in buying up horses cheap from drought areas. Each horse is then evaluated and depending on the outcome are either sent to the knackers or I am assuming resold for more money. Chloe happened to be there one day when a tb went through and was put in the knacker's lot. She hopped on him later and felt he'd had quite a bit of training put into him and had promise in dressage, and was far too good for dog food.

She asked her boss if she could buy him and he said sure, for $2000. She can't afford yet another horse but desparately wants to find him a home - did we want him?

Apparently we do, even though I wasn't consulted for a month about it.

The price has now dropped to $800, but he would need to be vaccinated for EI because he's in another zone, so perhaps another $200.

Mum tonight offered to go halves with me - $400 each. And I've worked out to get enough tack to ride both the horses at once is going to cost me $200.

So $600 for me, which is fortunate because I happen to have that amount right now.

There is another big problem (no pun intended) - he's huge. (His name is name is Tiny atm) Which I don't mind because I'm fairly tall and Chloe thinks we'd look awesome together. The horse float has a problem however. We'd have to sell ours and buy a bigger float. My 16hh horse is fine because she travels with her head horizontal, the 16.1hh is iffy because he travels like a giraffe. A 17.1hh horse just doesn't have a hope. The hire floats here aren't even tall enough. But perhaps if he's super brilliant ours would work sufficiently well to get him home at least.

The advantage of a second horse is my unhorsed friend can ride with me. It would be really fun to have someone at PC my age and close to my level, and we could have lessons with Chloe together and go to shows.

I don't know about the boarder, I think I'd charge her though to help the costs. And also because we don't NEED her horse like we do now to stop my horse getting lonely.