What's your best advice for my family for getting a colt when we know nothing about horses?

Don't.What's your best advice for my family for getting a colt when we know nothing about horses?
If you know nothign about horses I would definatly not start with a young one-unless you plan on getting a professional infvolved in his training.


Do you have any freinds who know about horses to help you out. Have you read horse care books to get gneral knowlege. See if you can set up an apointment with an equine vet before you get the horse to go over basic housing, feeding, health care ect.What's your best advice for my family for getting a colt when we know nothing about horses?
There's a saying about this - green on green makes black and blue. What you save on the purchase price by buying a colt instead of a steady older horse you'll spend on training and medical care. I know some people have successfully had young horses as their first, but there is some luck involved.





To really enjoy your horse experience, to enjoy it enough that you'll stay a horse person instead of being discouraged and quitting, you should consider a well-trained, reliable family horse. You'll be able to ride immediately, to take lessons astride, participate in horse evenst, etc without waiting, worrying and needlessly increasing the inherent risk.





Think about it this way, too. You buy the colt, let's say he's one year old. You theneed him, take him to the vet, pay a farrier, pay board or feed costs, possibly(hopefully) pay for training and lessons for about 2 years before you can so much as go on a trail ride. OR you could buy a 5 yr old or older (and bear in mind horses can remain useful well into their 20s with good care) and you have an immediate return on that investment.





And god forbid your li;ves shoudl change and you are unable to keep the horse, you can get a fairly good portion of the purchase price back. If you buy a colt and he's only amateur-trained or you weren't able to because something happened, you get nada.





Eventually you can ';graduate'; to a younger or less trained horse and still have a good time because you have some experience.
Getting an untrained young colt would be a mistake - you should start with an older horse that is already trained... because that horse will help to train YOU.
Do lots of research before buying a colt. They are lots of upkeep, not to mention as they grow they will become very expensive to feed. I highly recommend you reading everything you can get your hands on about the care of horses before making such a big investment. This will be very time consuming also. Good luck on whatever decision you make.
Then why are you doing it? Think of the best interests of the colt, not what YOU want.
Your first horse should NOT be a baby, even if you have pro training. First of all, before you get any horse you should learn everything you can about them. Then you should get a quiet horse, older than 9-10, that has no vices and is an easy keeper. Make sure when you do get one you have a support network that includes a vet, an experienced horse person, and/or a trainer.