Getting Your First Horse

My family had ponies when I was a child, but at that time I only learned that I loved riding and nothing more. Now, I have friends who will help me find a suitable horse, but as a supplement, this book has been very informative and I feel a lot better about the search. It's probably not a good book for someone with very much horse experience, since it would be too elementary. But, for someone like me who has a little riding experience but no real horse-keeping experience, it's a great book.

I want to get a horse and found this book very informational. It had everything from what to look for in a horse and what to ask the horse seller to Horse health. And in between it has the pros and cons to home horse keeping and the pros and cons to boarding. If you want to get a horse and are kind of lost in how to go about it then this book is for you.

I like this book because it covers everything from feeding, pasturing, stabling, grooming, tack and how to adjust it, worming, to diseases and breeds of horses. It is written so a beginner can understand it and organized in a way to make things easy to find. You don't have to be a vet or a rocket scientist to understand it. I have referenced it ever since I bought it and it was easy to find and understand the particular diseases that I needed to look up like navicular, founder, and laminitis. The pleasant writing style makes you want to keep on reading about stuff you didn't even pick up the book to find out about.

I am a horse owner and I found this book to be not only informative but enjoyable to read. With so many other books on the subject of owning horses they are so dry that they do not hold your interest long enough to impart their information. Ms Dutson not only informs you but makes reading about things you think you know fun. Sometimes along the way you realize you learned something new. I think everyone who is thinking of buying a horse needs to read this book before they jump into the horse ownership boat. We all have known people that think that buying the horse is the most expensive part of owning a horse, whereas we know that it is not even close to the most expensive part of being a horse owner.I applaud Ms Dutson for her thorough inspection of all aspects of buying your first horse. For someone who has already purchased my first horse I wish that someone had given me this book before hand so that I could have made a more informed choice. Thank you, Miss Dutson

I think someone gave this book to me as a joke. I have had horses for more than twenty years and thought I knew a lot about horses. As I read the book I became more and more convinced that Ms. Dutson has put together, in a much better way than I have ever seen before, what you need to know if you want to own a horse. I found it a great review and learned a few things while reading it. I think John Lyons, in his forward to the book, put it best " Judith Dutson has done both the prospective horse owner and first-time horse buyer a tremendous service in writing this book.