Can She Measure Up?

After a good night's sleep and checkout, we headed back to the barn, directed by Jill, after locating a Dunkin Donuts for coffee and a dozen to share with Robin and the herd.

He FINALLY asked me what I thought......and I told him this story. When I went to see a buckskin that I had been seeking for a few months, 4+ hours from home, it came up lame in the round pen. I was very disappointed and nearly left, but a worker at the barn convinced me to walk the aisles and look at what else they had. I saw this big white blaze and great big eyed horse looking at me....Cute. Can I see him? Out came a very pretty blanketed appy, 4 years old....about as far from buckskin as I could get. He was saddled, ridden by the employee. Good. I tried him. Good. My (then) husband rode him. Good. I still couldn't make up my mind. I asked my husband: "What do you think". His reply put the registration papers in my hand. He said " I think you are crazy to say no".

I looked Steven dead in the eye and said: I don't think you could ever ask for a better disposition and if her finished size is sufficient, you'd be crazy to say no! especially with a relatively low cost and a return policy. He just nodded. I was 99% sure, he was hooked.

Back at the barn, after sharing, via Steven, my favorite donut: French Cruller,with Sage, I asked for a measuring tape, in hands of course, to start my research. I asked Robin about the 'new' kind of measuring I had discovered on line the day before. First Steven and then I noticed on the day before that the cannon bone seemed shorter on a mustang than on a 'regular' horse, but the forearm seemed longer. She had explained at the time that is typical and partly for that reason the 'new' measurement may or may not be accurate.

My rational mind told me to measure the adult mares to see what sort of impact the 'new' measurement had on their actual adult height. So off I go to the big paddock to visit and measure the 2 adult mares. They stood stone still, only Skye was even remotely interested in this white tape blowing around us. She craned her neck around, and kept herself amused playing with my hair and cell phone case while I measured. Doing the math from hands to inches then back to hands and then measuring the horse in hands, told me that the 'new' measurement showed the horse to be slightly shorter than she actually was! I repeated this ritual with Reno, who cared much more about her breakfast than anything else, with the same results. Later, I found out, that this measuring routine had been caught on video by Steven.




Armed with that information, I headed off to the barn to tell Robin what I had discovered, she was not surprised and went to get Sage from her paddock for one more session with the measuring....Her projected height is 15.2-15-3 hands: perfect.

We then retrieved " Little Sage" from her paddock and prepared her for her first real ride.......