By Judy O'Brien Van Put
SULLIVAN COUNTY — May 6, 2003 – Horse shows are now being held most weekends in our tri-county area.
Coming up this Sunday, May 11, is the NYSTQHA Fun Day at the Fancher Davidge Park. English and Western riders are welcome, and there will be both Pleasure and Speed Divisions.
The show begins at 9 a.m.
For more information, please call Mike at 361-1899.

E-(Quine) Trading
More and more families are becoming hooked on the “Web” – and the Internet is now becoming a valuable tool for horse-related business. Not only can you buy a saddle, bridle, or other tack items over the Internet, you can do a pretty good job of selecting a horse for sale as well.
A great Web site to become familiar with if you’re in the market to buy or sell a horse is “HorseDirect.com”. This Web site is free for those looking to buy a horse.
HorseDirect.com is very easy to use. The interactivity is easy and satisfying, the graphics are interesting and colorful, and the whole idea of selecting your criteria for a horse search make it a very desirable tool to use in the search for a horse.
(In addition, there are a number of links on the homepage, listed alphabetically, for topics such as apparel and clothing, horse breeds, real estate, and veterinary information.)
A number of choices are available to assist in narrowing your search, such as whether you want to buy a horse or place an ad. You can choose the breed you’re looking for and be specific or non-specific (all breeds, all draft, all gaited, etc.) in terms of color, gender, and minimum and maximum price. You can direct your search within a geographic range of, for example, within 100 miles of your zip code.
Horses are graded as to discipline (barrel racing, trail riding, dressage, etc.). You can even search for a specific pedigree – including a sire or dam’s name. To further narrow your search, you can select the desired height, age, temperament (from a 1 – “Very Quiet” to a 10 – “Highly Spirited”) and degree of professional training, if applicable. Most ads include a color photo, and the owner’s name, address, telephone number and e-mail address.
Once you’ve chosen the horse that suits your needs, it’s up to you to contact the owner and arrange for a personal meeting.
For those interested in selling horses, you can place an ad via e-mail and submit a photo of your horse for a nominal fee of $10. The criteria is the same as described above. You fill out the horse’s breed, age, gender, price, training, disciplines, and pedigree, if available. We used this service and were successful in selling our horse. The range of inquiries we received was so much greater than we would have expected from advertising locally. (This is especially true when you have a breed of horse for sale that is not common to this area.)
And finally, another useful tool provided by HorseDirect.com to assist you in finding the right horse is the “Horse Wanted” ads. You may place your “Horse Wanted” ad for free and get notification by e-mail when YOUR horse shows up on the database.