Logistics: Costs

So how does one arrange for an international horse purchase? By spewing money and numbers and bills in every direction.

Horse: Paypal backed by a credit card.

If I’m going to order a horse online, might as well pay online.

This turned out to be the hardest part. When we bought Rodney, we used a wire transfer, which went through nigh on immediately. This is no longer the case. Banking rules changed last fall. Banksters were slow to catch up. For two days, they promised immediate action. Suddenly, on Monday afternoon, after fluffing the transfer several times, they told us that a wire transfer takes 3-7 days. WTF? In caps!

In hindsight, we could have paid days earlier. However, one of my conditions of sale was no enormous shipping fees nor hideous quarantine requirements. Not really a concern, but I did not know that at the time.

PayPal? Either an extremely ridiculous or an extremely post-modern way to buy a horse. Unfortunately, PayPal didn’t like smell of the Sprucehaven account. Seller Linda Plank hadn’t used the account in a while and needed to reverify. PayPal got obstreperous about the process. Ironically, if she’d had no account, we could have done it immediately.

Plus, if you back your account with a credit card, PayPal charges a fee. If you give PayPal access to your bank account, there is no fee. I don’t like people having access to my account. The cost of being paranoid.

We ended up sending the money to my horse advisor, writer & blogger Karen Briggs (may her hollandaise never separate). This got the money into Canada, to be settled between them. We had to pay the large fee and suffer a crappy exchange rate. However, this was Monday at 11:45 pm, less than 8 hours from Milton’s non-refundable scheduled departure.

Then the next morning, Linda’s Paypal account was happy and open for business. Plus, the wire transfer money turned up at Linda’s bank. Oy.

Vetting, Paperwork, & New Shipping Boots: included with above.

Linda kindly arranged and paid for these, meaning we could pay her a lump sum instead of racking up international fees for each transaction.

Ontario to KY: Credit card.

Despite being a Canadian company, the quote was in US dollars. At a decent exchange rate, no less.

Layover: On account. Cash

Originally, the layover fee was to have been added to the second shipper’s fee, who I would then pay. This is a handy convenience. However, come the day, I forked over the cash in person.

KY to AL: Cash

Paid in person.

10Q

Acknowledgements
Enormous thank yous to everyone involved, for going above and beyond, for sending good vibes, for coming up with solutions, for listening to me fuss. Major thanks to the household’s hardworking breadwinner for all of the preceding, for keeping us afloat, and for thinking that horses are a good idea.

Tomorrow: Milton and Me.

Logistics: Shipping

Saturday
Saturday

It took us three tries to get Milton from Canada to Alabama. There were just too many variables. These shippers could get him out of Canada. Those – much fewer – shippers could bring him into Alabama. He could be dropped at a farm for the switchover. Okay, what farm? Where? What state? What day? We couldn’t confirm this leg until we had that leg. We couldn’t confirm that leg until we had this leg.

Attempt One: The bus is full.
Milton almost came down a week earlier. KY to AL was booked. When I went to pay for the CAN to KY leg, I found that the earlier conversation with the shipper had been taken as an inquiry rather than as a reservation. No room. The second CAN to KY didn’t get back to us with a quote in time and the bus left without. We canceled KY to AL. They were not coming back to AL in the near future. Cue flailing and fretting.

Attempt Two: The bus gets lost.
My saddle seat instructor, Courtney Huguley of Stepping Stone Farm, was at the World’s Championship Horse Show in Louisville KY. Woo Hoo! If we could get him to Lexington, she would pick him up on the way home. If needed. Worst case, Milton would have to wait four days until the ASB bus left on Saturday. I would go up to Lexington early in the week, check on the horse, watch the show in Louisville, and generally fart around one of my favorite places in the world. Oh, twist my arm.

That gave us a fixed point. A shipper recommended Newtown Square Layover. It looked nice in the photos. More importantly, every shipper we spoke to knew of Newtown Square and Dr. Barbara Poole. This gave me confidence. We reserved a stall.

International Horse Transport was engaged to bring Milton to Lexington on Tuesday 8/19. [Teaser 2]

I called 15 different companies, from huge names to A Dude With A Trailer. I finally found a shipper-who-shall-remain-nameless who didn’t feel that entering Alabama equated to falling off the edge of the world. They would pick Milton up Wednesday morning and bring him down. [Teaser 3] Easier on Milton and way cheaper than me in Kentucky.

IHT delivered Milton to Newtown Square in deluxe fashion. Border papers turned out to be a non-issue. The seller, Linda Plank of Sprucehaven Farm in Ontario, jumped through the appropriate Canadian hoops and IHT handled the rest.

By Tuesday night, my horse (!) was in the country and safely tucked into a stall.

On Tuesday, the second shipper had sent a message warning they were running late. A lot of confusing noise about the states they needed to get to first and where they might or might not stop. I started to wonder.

Wednesday morning …

Wednesday midday …

Wednesday early evening. I heard from shippers. They were an hour away from Newtown Square. They would pick up Milton, ship to Knoxville, layover, drop off, pick up, pick up, drop off, maybe layover again, maybe not.

Three hours on day 1. Thirteen hours on day 2. Ping-ponging around the state of Tennessee on one of the hottest days of the year. Unspecified number of hours on day 3. Two layovers at places unknown.

Bzzzzt. Wrong answer.

Attempt Three: Success
Newtown Square graciously found room in the inn. The ASB bus was still available. We had a plan. Since the transport was as much a favor as much as a job, I drove up to Lexington on Thursday. I was around to help load and ship on Saturday. It was the sporting thing to do.

Plus, I had a chance to see Rachel Wamble on the green shavings with High In The Sky and It’s Alabama. Yeah Boy! The only part of Lexington I saw was the quarter mile between the hotel & the layover. Plus a late-night, past-my-bedtime trip to Joseph-Beth. I have my priorities.

Tomorrow: Buying Milton

Mail-Order Horse

To me, the most interesting part about Milton is that I BOUGHT A HORSE [Meet Milton]. From a narrative point of view, the most interesting part is that I had never seen him. Nope, didn’t go look at. Nope, didn’t ride. Wasn’t even in the same country when I bought him.

WTF?

For the last two years, writer, blogger, & author Karen Briggs (may her animals be always sleek & shiny) has been operating as my Horse Hunt Fairy Godmother, “Someone I trust to help me sort through the online ads & videos. And whack me over the head with her magic wand should I become overly whiny and obstreperous.” [Progress #1]

She’d find horses and send me links. I’d find horses and ask for her opinion. She kept saying, Come to Canada. We have nice horses. Come to Canada. The prices are not insane.

Finally, Karen (may all her jumping rounds be fault-free) told me she found a horse owned by a friend of hers, Linda Plank of Sprucehaven Farm in southwest Ontario. Since Karen (may writing assignments shower down on her) is an award-winning freelance writer, her emails are always amusing and eloquent. This one radiated an undertone of, You want nice horse? I found you nice horse. Now shit or get off the pot.

So I did.

Of course there was more to it than that. Photos. Videos. Karen (may her horses stay sound the day before big competitions) drove three hours one-way to Sprucehaven to sit on Milton [Teaser 1]. Red flags failed to appear. I pondered. I waffled.

I have notebook pages of pro and con. The cons you can imagine. As for pros, among others, going to try the horse would cost a significant fraction of the purchase. She was right about the prices. Then, I tried Rodney three times, including in a dressage clinic. Look what good that did me. Plus, we weren’t finding quality horses. Trainers would shut me down over the phone. If I didn’t do this, I didn’t see a useful way forward. Basically, nothing I was doing was working.

Maybe I just wanted to be the sort of person who makes the dramatic gesture. For once in my life.

Tomorrow: Shipping Milton
~~~
Gratuitous Balloon Photo from a reader in upstate New York.
“Much ballooning around here, especially in the fall. We saw three others from a distance but this one was right along the road.”

balloon

Meet Milton

Milton Sun Aug 24 2014 1

Milton is a 6 year old, 16.1 hand, gray, OTTB gelding from Canada. He arrived Saturday, 8/23. Prospective show name: Canadian Cold Front.

Milton raced briefly, if unspectacularly. He has been off the track long enough to gain a civilized walk, trot, canter, and a start over low jumps. He was exactly what I was looking for: a nice Thoroughbred under 10 years old, under 10K.

That’s not the interesting bit.

Tomorrow: Finding Milton.

Milton Sun Aug 24 2014 2