Download a free "Blueprint" to help you on your quest to find your perfect horse.

No Strings attached!

This is a 3 page file that gives you a place to write down your riding goals, your skills and abilities. It will also help you figure out what the costs of keeping a horse are (always more than we think!). That's a great way to help you stay within your monthly horse budget.

You can enter information on boarding stables. There's a handy list to let you fill in what's included in that monthly board bill. That way, you can do a fair comparison between different stables.

If you plan to keep your horse on your own property, check out the prices of horse feed, hay and bedding. These costs vary depending on what part of the country you live in. For me in central Florida, beautiful green heavy alfalfa bales cost an arm and a leg because it all has to be trucked down here. Grain is the same. We grow oranges and strawberries here, but not much horse feed: oats - corn - alfalfa.

Find out who your local farriers are and how much they charge. It makes a big difference if you leave your horse barefooted, shoe him or have to use special shoes and pads. Paying that bill every six weeks can add up.

You'll have a place to inventory the horse supplies and tack you already own and figure out what supplies you'll need to initially purchase. If you're like me, you'll always be looking for the next newest and greatest shampoo, supplements, bits, leg wraps, saddle pads..... like I said earlier - horses are an addiction. .. and we just love it!

Just right-click on the green link below and choose "Save target as" or "Save link as". It depends on if you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera with Windows. With a Macintosh, control+click and you'll see "Download linked target" or "Download linked file" depending on if you use Safari, Firefox, Camino, etc.

Download "My Blueprint"

This will download a pdf file to your computer. Make sure you know where it is being saved to so that you can find it later.

If you prefer, you can just click on the link and look at it first. Then, you'll be able to print it without downloading. Use the 'back' button on your browser to come back to this page. The 'Blueprint' won't save to your computer, so if you want another copy, just come back here and print one out again. Easy enough.. Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D) to make it even easier!

You will need Adobe Reader to open this file on a Windows computer. You probably already have this free program, but in case you don't, you can download the newest version directly from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html . This will open a new browser window and you'll be able to download the program. It's safe and it's free.

Macs have a built-in program called 'Preview' pre-installed that will open pdf files.