After 2 unsuccessful attempts to buy a horse here in Alberta I focused my search on other provinces and US. In time, my attention started to shift from warmbloods toward Andalusian or Half-Andalusian horses. I think it happened because most warmbloods I have seen or worked with lately didn't impress me much. My fellow instructors bought young warmbloods from local breeders which were not particularly interesting and paid a lot of money for them. Many warmbloods I have seen or worked with gave me feeling of being clunky, stiff legged and ungraceful.

My family was planning a road trip to US through the West states. I was gathering information on horses to look at during the trip. I found 4. Then I lost one because he was sold, he was the best. Other 3 were not as super as this one. One day I was browsing warmbloods-for-sale.com. I like that website. It is well organized, presents horses nicely and many breeders whom I haven't seen on other sites advertise their horses there. And I found a very nice looking horse from Prairie Thunder Ranch in South Dakota. They are family owned breeding farm and they breed mostly Holsteiner horses and a few Holsteiner crosses. What caught my attention right away is how well their website presents their horses. Tons of information, pictures, videos, etc. about stallions, mares and youngsters. This is how I like to see horses on the Internet. Nothing is hidden, everything is there. The horse that caught my attention was 2007 Andalusian-Holsteiner cross Santo de Pequeno PT. I liked him a lot, his conformation, movement, his face, etc. I showed him to Frances and she liked him a lot telling me that on his dam's side he has Andalusian stallion Maluso three times. Frances own stallion Esteban comes from Maluso line and he is one of the most gentlest horses I know. Santo's sire is trained in dressage and his video is very impressive, especially, canter. Santo has the same flow and elasticity in his canter. My previous horse Colonel is half Holsteiner of similar blood lines and has many good qualities including great work ethic. I decided to buy him without coming and seeing him personally. You may think - why didn't I go and look at the horse if I were going to US anyway. I was thinking of that. However, it would meant waiting for a month before even seeing him and I didn't want to lose him. The price was reasonable, the horse is very nice. He could be sold in a month and after so much searching and seeing so many horses I knew that this can be the one I was looking for.

Working with Amber who handles sales of Prairie Thunder Ranch horses was such a pleasure. All my questions, concerns and requests were answered quickly. Amber was very willing to work with my particular situation which was buying a horse while I'm on the road trip to US. This meant I had to do everything during our vacation - arrange vet exam, find shipping company, make all necessary shipping papers, etc . Amber was very kind to take Santo to the vet twice for pre-purchase exam and to get a health certificate for importation to Canada. Now, looking back it feels easy and almost incredible how it all worked out. But I must tell you I had to really concentrate on having fun with my family during the trip instead of becoming a nervous wreck while dealing with finding a shipper and arranging the import to Canada.

I would like to express a huge gratitude toward the shipping company Elliott Equine Transport from Calgary for bringing Santo to me safe and sound. They are very easy to deal with. They work with a brokerage company, so after opening an account there it wasn't much work to get all the papers in order. They accept personal checks upon delivery of your horse. There is no hassle of signing a contract. They are a big company that ships many horses in big trucks so they are not expensive. You can choose the size of the stall for your horse. They are efficient and at the same time willing to give horses and drivers a break depending on the weather and road conditions. The only thing they can improve upon is to be more organized on updating clients where they are during the trip.

Now it has been two weeks since Santo is home. He is even better in person than on the video. His kind, cheerful and curious personality is very contagious and affected the other horse for the better. Santo's movement is so graceful, balanced and light with powerful drive from the haunches and a lot of freedom in the shoulder. I can watch him play for hours... I'm getting to know him better every day and I'm very excited about our future together.

Happy riding...