Animals cost money.  Animals cost your worry, your time, your heart.  When you "get" an animal you do not always move along the path that you had in mind for you and the animal.

It seems that we either have bad karma with horses or else we make poor choices - the poor choice being to have the horse to start with, I guess.  Out of our five horses we have one sound horse.  The other four started out sound, fate just seems to have thrown road blocks in the paths.

Hubby's horse, bought as a 1 1/2 yo, started carefully under saddle when the vet deemed it a good time, has a nerve impingement in the shoulder area, making him gimpy and unshowable in dressage.  The heart is more than willing, but the body is not.  This horse chose my husband, he tries to do whatever is asked of him, so this is his forever home.

Hubby's 2nd dressage prospect, bought as a weanling, again carefully started under saddle - by a trainer this time - developed wobblers, was falling down when going faster than a walk.  $15,000 and a major surgery brought him up to not falling down any more, but still not back to 100% soundness/movement.  And what do you with a fiery-tempered horse that is really only safe to ride at a walk and trot, who can be more than a handful on his good days?

The two "company" horses, bought to babysit grandbabies and non-riders have each developed their own issues in time.  One, once he got the painful dental issues/TMJ cleared up and could get some flesh on him, turned out to be afraid of people, afraid of unknown situations.  He's a great companion for horse #1 - fills the bill there to a T.  Now we're told he may be pre-Cushings, a progressive health issue that can be "managed" at great expense.  Babysitter #2 now seems to be insulin-resistant, if not pre-Cushings or both - and in my ignorance I let him have a few snacks of spring desert grasses & weeds; he now appears to have a mild case laminitis.

Laminitis - basically the internal composition of the feet go haywire, causing separation and possibly collapse of the internal structures of the hooves.  This can cause anything from a mild lameness that goes away after a while, to a life-ending situation where the main bone inside the hoof actually collapses down and out through the sole of the hoof.

I've been through laminitis with another horse, one who is mine but no longer lives here.  His was apparently caused from the summer heat.  He did recover, he is 25 as of March, and is showing his age and health history, per the trainer who keeps him in her barn.

And the one sound horse?  He's mine and most of the time I am afraid to ride him.  He wants to be the boss, call the speed, and has more energy than I am comfortable riding.  Yet, he is the one horse that I could safely allow the babies to toddle around.  Why did I buy him?  why is he still here?

Lots of thoughts, decisions to make now and in the future.