How do you decide if you should sell your horse?

My mare is 12 and I've had her since she was 2. I've put in all the work and many hours, blood, sweat and tears have gone into her. She is my baby. But, I don't have the time I used to anymore since I've had my son and I feel like I'm not doing her justice. I think she would make a great youth horse and it'd be cool to see her excel with someone else. 

BUT, it breaks my heart and makes me tear up at the thought of selling her. I'm too attached! 

If i sold her, i wouldn't be able to compete for a couple years because I'd just slowly work on a couple young horses. So the thought of not being able to throw her in the trailer and go to a jackpot is hard too. 

How do you make that hard decision! I don't want to regret it either way!

Keep her!

From the emotion in your post I can tell you love the mare, but IMO you have some options.

1) Keep her legged up as best you can and take that girl to a jackpot every now and then. (My vote, lol)

2) Breed her (if she meets the criteria to breed). You wont have to ride her to keep her fit right now while you dont have a lot of spare time and you get a new one out of the deal. You could bring her back after her foal and then have a young one coming along when you are able to start hauling her again. While you work on your young one your human young one can ride the mare and move along as a youth horse :)

3) Sell her. Take time off. No barrel races. You will (maybe) want to get back into it and then have to go buy another one, train it, or get with it, get to know it, vet it, etc. This mare you know everything about her and all that is done already. BUT someone else would get a very nice horse out of the deal and be very lucky to have her. 

4) Lease her. CAUTION on this one. If you dont have the time for her and want her to be running and worked, is there anyone you know that could come to where she currently is and ride her to keep her legged up then haul her for you on the weekends? Best case scenario. You could also lease her to someone you know with all the contracts and whatnot off site where you are 100% sure shes taken care of, loved on, and being run and used and happy. Id be so careful though.

I'd keep her. If you have a young child it'll be nice to have a break and ride a safe fun horse you know. Also if you get a chance to go to a barrel race you've got " old faithful"!

Agree with above answers. Keep her, enjoy her when you can and when you have more time you have something ready to go. And maybe when the time comes she can be passed down to your son if he wants to ride 

Exactly what I would have said ....... good ones are hard to come by .....

I like all the other answers.... I know exactly how you feel.  I have a 30yr old i have had for 23yrs..  When things got so i couldn't 

haul her..  I was blessed enough to know awesome peeps who know a youngin needing a pole/barrel mount for Littlle Britches..

My mare had sat off & on for a few years...  any way..  I met with the folks and felt comfortable enough to loan my gal out. 

She was 24 at the time, Loved her job and to go.  So off she went, got to go the National Little Britches finals 2 years in row . 

Ran a 21.4 pole pattern at the age of 25.. She is retired with me at home now and makes me smile everyday.   with that being said if you can find a youngster and family that you can trust you might 

share your blessing for a little bit.  Yeah I know they might get hurt or crippled, but that can happen any place.  

Good Luck with your thoughts...

Really if you are that attached to your horse why would you even consider selling, if you do sell this horse you will regret it, I promise you will, I sold one years ago because I got talked out of him and tryed to buy him back but they put a price on him that there was no way I could spend on him at that time.

Keep her. I was once listening to a podcast of a well-known horse trainer, and you know what she said? When we feel like we "don't have to time" for them or we feel like we aren't doing them justice because of the time restraint, does that horse REALLY care if you aren't riding her as much? You have had her for 10 years, you two probably have a pretty good bond, I'm sure you just going out there, feeding her, letting her graze (if she's on pasture), petting her, grooming her, or just saying hi gives her comfort and consistency as opposed to you sending her down the road.. to whomever. Who may abuse her, not feed her, starve her, overuse her, treat her like garbage and ship her down the road etc. because once they leave your property there is NOTHING you can do. She may get a person that does care and take care of her, but that's one big if because these people.. aren't YOU.