How I Bought Ragyogo
About 15 years ago, I had a stallion named Mackay. We had many wonderful years together, but he was getting older – around 24 or 25 at the time. I realized it was time to start looking for a successor.
I was specifically looking for a golden-colored stallion, preferably a cremello, but they don’t exactly grow on trees. So, the search took a while. Eventually, a lady reached out to me saying she had a cremello stallion for sale. News spreads fast in the horse world!
She sent me a video, but he didn’t really appeal to me. Then she mentioned that a friend of hers in Germany had a palomino stallion available for lease. I wasn’t too thrilled about that idea – I haven’t had the best experiences leasing horses. If I was going to have a stallion for years to come, I wanted to own him.
But then she suggested I could lease him first, and then buy him later if everything felt right. That actually sounded like a really good deal – getting to know the horse first before making a commitment. I was all for it, but I wanted to see his papers – to know if he was approved and how.
Every time I asked for documents, she sent something else. That made me a bit suspicious. I had seen photos and a short video and thought he looked beautiful, but I had a strange feeling about the whole thing.
So I asked a friend who speaks Hungarian if she could help me check the papers. She couldn’t really tell whether he was approved or not, but she did find the name of the current owner. She suggested calling him – which I thought was a great idea.
The lady had told me the stallion was in Austria, being ridden by a 16-year-old girl, and that he was very sweet. But when my friend called the owner, whose name was Tamas, he went completely silent at first. Then he said:
“Yes, I do have him for sale – but he’s still my horse, and I haven’t decided who I’m going to sell him to.”
So, the lady didn’t have the right to lease or sell him at all!
I contacted her and said this didn’t feel right. I told her I was happy to pay for the contact, but I didn’t want to do business with her friend in Germany – she hadn’t even bought the horse, nor had she been given permission to.
That’s when she completely lost it. I got a full-on scolding – she said I had ruined their business deal, that I should never have called, and that I could go away with my “bad Swedish.” I still believe I did the right thing.
We called Tamas again. He said that if I could offer the horse a good home and take proper care of him, I could buy him directly. He checked my website, saw how our horses lived, and that old Mackay was still healthy despite his age. My friend spoke well of me, and in the end, he agreed to sell me the stallion – on one condition: he wanted to come to Sweden and see where the horse would live.
I thought that was a wonderful idea. I said they were all warmly welcome. The whole family came to visit, and it was a very nice experience. We’re still friends today. They felt the horse couldn’t have ended up in a better place.
That’s how Ragyogo – or Ragge, as we called him in Sweden – came to us. He actually had a very long official name, but Ragge suited him perfectly.
We had a few lovely years together, but sadly, we had to say goodbye when he was 19. One day he simply couldn’t get up in his stall. It was heartbreaking. He was a truly beautiful and kind stallion, with a big personality.
