Successful Swap

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Gait Hubbell
Naples, Fla.

My husband and I raise Spanish mustang hones, but—sadly enough—we live in a definite quarter horse area and most everyone puts our sturdy, fast, and intelligent little animals down.

Well ... we happened to have a colt that we knew was good. He came wild off the range in Wyoming from purebred stock and wasn't about to let any two-legged creatures near him with ropes, blankets, saddles, and what have you. The colt was so nervous we didn't really know how to break him, and we didn't want to blow the job!

Then, one day we happened to run into a professional horse trainer and invited him out to the farm. The man immediately liked Choctaw and said he could have the little mustang in the bridle and trained to voice and leg commands in one week... problem was, he charged $10 a day and we just didn't have that kind of money on hand.

As it turned out, though, we had an extra beef that Neil (the trainer) wanted ... and since cattle prices were down at that time, the swap seemed ideal to us.

But the arrangement worked out even better than we'd expected. Neal was great with horses and showed my husband some of his "family secrets" (many originating from Indian know-how) for training the animals. We now have a well-broken horse, a good friend,and the ability and knowledge to work with this year's colts ourselves.

With cash you might get what you pay for. With barter you get what you trade for ... and then some.

Incidentally, we can now go to any horse show around and keep up with the best of the quarter horses. That makes us very proud!

Becki Aquino
Emmett, Idaho

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